You have to hand it to the Kansas City Royals

And if you don’t, they will still find some way to take it.

The Royals won their seventh game of this postseason on Tuesday, beating the Baltimore Orioles 2-1 to take a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series. One more victory and the Royals are headed to the World Series, a height they last scaled in 1985. They had not even reached the playoffs since they won the ’85 Series.

Billy Butler snapped a 1-1 tie in the sixth inning with a sacrifice fly and the Royals’ bullpen shut the Orioles down the rest of the way. Every game in this series has been decided by two runs or fewer.

In the National League, the San Francisco Giants took a 2-1 lead in over the St. Louis Cardinals in peculiar fashion. They scored four times in the first inning, when they got three of the six hits they’d manage all game. The Cardinals clawed back to tie the game at 4-4 but gave it away in the 10^th inning on a throwing error.

“Somebody asked me earlier … if there’s any other way we can score a run other than a non-conventional way, and I said, ‘If there is, we’re going to find a way,'” said Travis Ishikawa, who drove in three of the Giants’ four runs in the first inning

Both series continue on Wednesday. Orioles-Royals goes at 4 p.m. ET and Cardinals-Giants at 8 p.m. ET.

Today’s question

Can the Royals put the Orioles away in four straight?

Answers in the comment box, please.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .