Yankees History

October 8, 1977 at Royals Stadium
Yankees 6, Royals 4
Best of Five Game Series Tied 2-2

The Yankees came up big and forced a game five behind some nice pitching by Sparky Lyle and some early hitting by Mickey Rivers and Thurman Munson.  The Yankees scored a run in the first to take an early lead and it Mickey Rivers who started things off with a double.  He moved to third on Graig Nettles singled and then Rivers scored on Thurman Munson’s ground out.  The Yankees added two more in the second when Bucky Dent doubled home Willie Randolph and Dent then scored on Rivers’ single.  The Yankees kept it up in the third with another run on Lou Piniella’s RBI single.  It was only the bottom of the third inning and the Yankees had a 4-0 lead.

The Royals finally battled back in the bottom of the third.  A pair of triples resulted in two runs off of Yankee’s starter Ed Figueroa.  The Yankees added a fifth run in the top of the fourth on Nettle’s RBI single before the Royals struck again.

In the bottom of the fourth, Figueroa and Dick Tidrow combined to give up two more runs and just like that, the Yankees big lead evaporated.  Billy Martin then made a controversial move and went to his best reliever, Sparky Lyle, in the fourth inning.  With two runners on, he got George Brett to line out to end the inning and then he went on to throw five more scoreless frames to close the game out.  Thurman Munson drove home Mickey Rivers on a sac. fly in the ninth for a unneccesary insurance run.

The win forced a winner take all game five.  The big question would be whether Sparky Lyle’s long outing would preclude him from pitching in the deciding game assuming he was even needed.