Bob Lutz: Escobar sets the table and the Royals feast against Toronto

I hear they have cheap seats available for senior citizens at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. Um, perhaps that’s where R.A. Dickey and Latroy Hawkins should watch Wednesday’s ALCS Game 5.

Not to be cruel, but these guys are old. And they pitched like it Tuesday, all but putting the baseball on a tee for the Kansas City Royals’ hitters.

Dickey was knocked out in the second inning. Hawkins was treated rudely when he entered the game in the seventh, when it was still a game.

Collectively, the Blue Jays geezers — Hawkins is 42 and Dickey will be 41 in nine days — allowed six hits and eight runs in 1 2/3 innings. I hope the Royals are nicer to old men crossing the street.

Dickey’s knuckleball didn’t knuckle. And Hawkins was also out of sorts as Kansas City clouted its way to a 14-2 Game 4 win and moved to within one win of its second consecutive World Series.

The Royals brought their lumber and much of the damage is being done at the top of the order.

Leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar has become a catalyst during the ALCS and he led off Game 4 with a bunt single. Ben Zobrist followed with a two-run homer to right-center and the Royals tacked on a couple more first-inning runs.

Dickey barely had time to get his dentures into place before he was behind 4-0.

He was 20-6 for the New York Mets in 2012 and won the Cy Young Award. Toronto traded, among others, catcher Travis d’Arnaud and right-hander Noah Syndergaard, two key players for the Mets in their postseason chase, to acquire him after the season.

Dickey has been OK with Toronto, topping 200 innings in each of his three seasons and going 39-37. But he’s clearly not what he once was.

Neither are the Royals, by the way, but in a completely different way.

For the second game in a row, Kansas City put together a 15-hit attack. Every hitter in the Royals’ lineup — 1 through 9 — is taking quality at-bats. It’s tough to pitch to a team with no weak links.

Speaking of which, what’s gotten into Escobar? At times, he has been a weak link in the lineup.

But he’s 9 for 15 in the ALCS and it’s not a soft .600, either. His first-inning bunt hit isn’t indicative of the damage Escobar has been inflicting on the Blue Jays. His Ruthian 1.446 slugging percentage is.

It’s been cute how Escobar superstitiously swings at the first pitch of games. The Royals really do better when he stings baseballs into the gaps and drives in runs, which is what he’s been doing in the ALCS. He had four RBIs on Tuesday.

Escobar batted just .220 with a weak .521 on-base plus slugging after the All-Star break this season. And he’s never done much at the Rogers Centre. In Center — in 18 regular-season games there, he’s batted only .219 with a .510 OPS.

Canada certainly seems to be agreeing with him over the past couple of games, though, during which Escobar has gone 6 for 8 with four runs and four RBIs.

Zobrist is playing a mean second fiddle. His two hits Tuesday make him 4 for 10 over the past two games with five runs and three RBIs.

The Royals have a lot of ways to beat you and Toronto doesn’t appear to have many ways to keep it from happening. The Blue Jays’ only win in the series came Monday night when they were able to jump on KC starter Johnny Cueto and hold on for dear life as the relentless Royals created a white-knuckle experience for a sellout crowd before finally succumbing, 11-8.

It’ll be hard for Toronto to prolong this series Wednesday. The Blue Jays’ pitching staff has been taxed and scheduled starter Marco Estrada was out-dueled by Kansas City’s Edinson Volquez in Game 1, which the Royals won 5-0.

Estrada has had the best season of his career in 2015, going 13-8 in the regular season with a 3.13 ERA. But he’s not overpowering and he’s not superhuman and I’m not sure that’s not what it’ll take to handle this Royals lineup.

The 8-9 hitters for Kansas City on Tuesday — Alex Gordon, Alex Rios and Paulo Orlando, who pinch-ran for Rios in the seventh — went 6 for 8 with six runs.

That means 1-2-8-9 were a collective 10 for 16. No. 3 hitter Lorenzo Cain chipped in with two hits and three driven in. Imagine what the bloodbath would have looked like had the Royals’ 4-7 hitters done better than 3 for 17?

Kansas City wants to lock this series down Wednesday, no doubt about it. No Game 6 and definitely no Game 7 with the prospect of Cueto pitching in a must-win game, even though the last time he did so — against Houston in Game 5 of the ALDS — he was marvelous.

The Royals are going for the kill Wednesday. And they have more than enough firepower, starting with Escobar, to get it done.

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 9:02 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Escobar sets the table and the Royals feast against Toronto."