Alcides Escobar Leads Royals to 14-2 Wreck of Blue Jays in ALCS; Daniel Murphy Homers Again as Mets Take 3-0 Lead over Cubs in NLCS

Players of the Day for Tuesday, October 20, 2015

American League

Escobar: 4 RBI

Despite Toronto's 11-8 win in game three, the ALCS seems destined to be in the hands of the Kansas City Royals, who took a commanding three-games-to-one lead in the best of seven series with a 14-2 mashing of the Blue Jays Tuesday at Toronto's Rogers Centre.

Leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar paced the Royals, going 2-for-3 with a pair of sac flies and a ninth inning single that plated the final two Kansas City runs. Escobar drove in four runs.

Escobar singled in the first and was aboard for Ben Zobrist's homer as the Royals pounded knuckballer, R.A. Dickey for four first inning runs.

Dickey lasted only until two down in the second inning, allowing an Alex Rios solo homer, which ended his mound appearance. It didn't get much better as the Royals ripped through six Toronto relievers, adding four runs in the seventh, three more in the eighth and two in the ninth.

Murphy: 5 games, 5 HR

Toronto now faces elimination in Wednesday's game five at the Rogers Centre. Start time is 4:07 pm EDT.

National League

Daniel Murphy was at it again, homering for the fifth straight game, and so were the players batting immediately in front and back of him, as the 2-3-4 Mets batters were a combined 8-for-14 and scored all five of the Mets runs in a 5-2 game three win over the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Murphy, David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes backed the pitching of Jacob deGrom, who tossed seven innings, allowing just four hits, two of them solo homers by Jorge Soler and Kyle Schwarber, which were the only runs the Cubs would score on the night.

Both Cespedes and Wright had two singles and a double. Wright scored three runs; Cespedes drove in two. Murphy went 2-for-5 with two runs and an RBI. His solo homer in the second put the Mets ahead 2-1.

The win put the Mets in the enviable position of being up three games to one in the best of seven NLCS, with the chance to put the hopes of generations of Cubs' fans to rest for another season on Wednesday. Game time is 8:07 pm EDT in Chicago.