Kansas Royals and Toronto Blue Jays Start ALCS Friday

The American League Championship Series begins on Friday between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Kansas City Royals. Both had tough series reaching this point and now look to punch their ticket to the World Series.

The best of seven series begins in Kansas City and here are a few interesting facts about the two teams.

• Toronto led baseball in home runs this season hitting 232. Yet in the past 30 years, just one team, the New York Yankees in 2009, led baseball in home runs and won the World Series the same year.
• Kansas City had 973 strikeouts this season, which were the fewest by far in baseball. No other MLB team was within 130 strikeouts. The most on the team was 108 by Eric Hosmer. In the rest of the league, 83 players struck out more than Hosmer.
• Chris Young a pitcher for Kansas City is 6-foot-10 but throws a fastball just 86 miles per hour. However, due to his size and deception he has been very hard to hit. Of all the pitchers in the majors this season with 120 or more innings pitched, Young was fourth in fewest hits allow over nine innings, trailing just Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw and Jake Arrieta.
• Both managers in the series were drafted by the New York Mets as catchers. The Royals’ Ned Yost was drafted in 1974 and John Gibbon for the Blue Jays was taken in 1980.
• The last time Toronto reached the ALCS was in 1993. Bo Jackson was a DH for the AL Central Chicago White Sox. He rose to stardom in baseball with Kansas City after leaving the NFL.
• The two teams have met just once in the postseason. The series was the ALCS in 1985. Toronto took a 2-0 lead in the series. Behind George Brett the Royals won Game 3, but Toronto came back to take Game 4. Then Kansas City won two straight to tie the series at 3-3 heading to a deciding Game 7.
• Kansas City won 6-2 in the final and eventually went on to win their one and only World Series title.
• Toronto was just 50-50 after 100 games this season. That was not out of the ordinary, in 8 of the past 9 seasons Toronto has arrived at their 101st game with between 49 and 51 wins.

All of that is in the books and the future is sitting in front of both teams today. The Royals are favored to win the opener at home, but the power and explosiveness of the Blue Jays keeps them from being ruled out of any game or series until the final out is called.

Prediction Series: Toronto in 6