London London. Salvador Pérez remembers what it felt like when playoff baseball returned to Kansas City after nearly 30 years of bleak, disappointing failures. It seemed like it had come to life, with fans filling Kauffman Stadium and changing their red Chiefs shirts to Royals blue. The Royals reached the World Series in 2014, but lost to the Giants in Game 7. But they returned the next year and finished the job, winning both World Series games against the Mets before winning the title in New York.
Now, the Royals are set to play the Yankees in Game 3 of their AL Division Series on Wednesday night, the first playoff game in the K after that title run. And Pérez, the 34-year-old All-Star catcher whose homer Monday night helped the Royals tie the series with the Yankees at one game apiece, will be back to enjoy the postseason atmosphere. “It's going to be amazing, ” he said. “I think we have the best fans in MLB. I think it'll be good for everybody.”
Certainly a lot of people are looking forward to it, including Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who owns a share of the franchise. While he was busy leading the defending Super Bowl champions to victory over the Saints on Monday night, he couldn't help but notice the roar of the crowd at Arrowhead Stadium every time the Royals scored in New York .With the Chiefs off this week, Mahomes is expected to be at the ballpark on Wednesday night.
“We know the fans at Arrowhead will be loud and rowdy and really into the game,” he said, “but I haven't had that experience at Kauffman — sold-out tickets, playoffs and things like that, and so It was good to see that kind of combination.” The Royals have not played a home game for more than two weeks. They concluded the regular season with a series at the Nationals and Atlanta, where they clinched a playoff spot. They then moved to Baltimore and won the wild-card series before landing in New York, where in five days they managed to split two games with the AL East champion.
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