The Los Angeles Angels and KC Royals are playing in the ALDS Game 1 on Thursday night and the matchup is live on TV from TBS and streaming online from MLB.com from Angel Stadium of Anaheim and the matchup starts past 9 pm ET as Kansas City comes in after winning the wild card game and the pitching duel will be between Jered Weaver and Jason Vargas.
The Angels come into the game after being the best team in the AL this season and that means they have home field advantage through the playoffs. The AL has the World Series home field as well and the Angels are in as AL West division champs after taking advantage of the terrible collapse from the Oakland Athletics this season. Mike Trout makes his first appearance in the postseason and he has been the best player in baseball over the past few years and now he gets the chance to do it in the playoffs.
The Angels lost Garrett Richards during the season and now they will lean on Weaver as their only ace and they will have Matt Shoemaker pitch as well. Shoemaker had a great start down the stretch against the Mariners and he will try and keep things going after this. Albert Pujols and David Freese know what it's like to play in October and they can help Trout along if he has any issues with the postseason, as they won a wild World Series together with the Cardinals.
The Royals come in after their crazy wild card game that saw the team win in a walk off and now they are into this series for the first time in 29 years. The Royals nearly blew the game, but they came back against the Athletics and now they are trying to steal a game from the Angels. The Angels won 98 games this season and were the best team in baseball and Trout once again was fantastic, leading the league in RBI, runs and extra base hits as well. Trout is an all-around great player and while his strikeouts are up this season, he has been as good as advertised and now he has the playoffs to try and dominate.
The Royals have had a hard time scoring runs this season and now players like Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon and Sal Perez will have to step up against one of the best teams in baseball. The Angels have a stacked lineup and Trout will be a mess to deal with for the Royals pitching. The team is hoping to get James Shields back on the mound as quick as possible and there's a chance the team could split these games and head home to win it to advance to the ALCS, because hey, it's baseball.
Check here for the Los Angeles Angels and KC Royals radio coverage.