Royals bullpen: 'There's no better weapon'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Throughout their historic run through the American League playoffs, the Kansas City Royals have relied on the same basic formula.

Get a lead early, then turn things over to the best trio of bullpen arms in baseball history.

Statistically speaking, no team can match what the Royals were able to do with Kelvin Herrera in the seventh, Wade Davis in the eighth, and Greg Holland in the ninth.

"There's no better weapon," Royals manager Ned Yost said as he soaked in the roar of the crowd that didn't seem to want to leave Kauffman Stadium.

No team has ever had two relievers with at least 60 innings pitched in a season and an ERA below 1.50.

With Herrera (1.41), Davis (1.00) and Holland (1.44), this season's AL champion Royals had three.

"It started out, find a way to get the ball to Holly in the ninth inning," Yost recalled.

Last season Luke Hochevar was used in that eighth inning role and he posted a 1.92 ERA. But he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow in March, so the plan had to be altered.

But once Davis began to have success in the role setting up Holland, "then it was like OK, find a way to get to the eighth inning," Yost said. "And with Kelvin's emergence this year, it's like, 'Let's get through six.'"

As good as the three were during the regular season, they've been even better in the playoffs.

Herrera has pitched 8 1/3 innings this postseason and allowed just one run, good for a 1.08 ERA. Davis has yielded one run in 9 1/3 innings (0.96) and was the winning pitcher in each of the first two ALCS games.

"It's just kinda laid in place nice with everybody working hard and backing each other up," Davis said. "Everybody doing their job has made it easy on everybody."

And Holland (1.13) saved all four Royals wins against Baltimore, tying Dennis Eckersley's record for one postseason series. He allowed one run in eight innings.

His six saves in the postseason are one short of the all-time record held by five closers, the last one being Boston's Koji Uehara last season.

"We take pride in working and preparing ourselves and being ready for those big situations," said Holland, who has saved more games than anyone else in the AL(93) over the past two seasons.

But even though Holland has been the only one of the three to make the All-Star team, he knows his success is at least partly based on the others in front of him protecting leads to give him save opportunities.

"It's been unbelievable," he said. "You've got to really give credit to those guys because we keep pressure off one another because they do their job so well."

Though Yost has been criticized at times during the season for not deviating from the set roles despite the situation, he has been a bit more flexible in the postseason.

"We would make sure that Wade Davis and Herrera generally during the season weren't pitching unless we were tied or ahead. That's apt to change," he said before Game 3. "We'll still pitch them if we're down one, maybe down two. With our offense swinging the bats pretty good, still gives us a chance to hold the score and get us back in it."

He brought in Herrera in Wednesday's clinching Game 4 with one out in the sixth inning, then went to Davis in the eighth and Holland for save No. 4 in the series and No. 6 in the playoffs.

For some, doing the same thing over and over might be boring. But not for Yost and the Royals.

"It goes back to playing the game the way the game was built to be played," he said. "Speed, defense, the ability to manufacture runs -- not reliant on home runs -- and really good pitching.

"I think it's an exciting brand of baseball and I think if you ask anybody in the country who watched our series, I think they'd agree with you."​

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