By narrowly losing three straight tense contests in the American League Championship Series to the Royals, the Orioles will try to make history and join the 2004 Red Sox as the only other baseball team to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a postseason series.

After two AL Championship Series games light on manager scrutiny, the outcome of Tuesday night’s third contest tilted on sixth-inning decisions by the skippers. And it was the underdog who emerged victorious, as the Royals’ Ned Yost made the winning moves in a 2-1 victory over the Orioles.

After a 2-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Game 3 on Tuesday night with 40,183 fans roaring in the Blue Zoo, Kansas City can clinch its third trip to the World Series with another win on Wednesday afternoon.

The bubbly is on ice for these remarkable Royals. They sit one victory away from advancing to their first World Series since 1985, pushing the Orioles to the brink of elimination. Kansas City will be primed for that possible celebration today, as Game 4 of the American League Championship Series gets underway at 4 p.m. ET (watch on TBS).

Alex Gordon arrived with the Royals at the start of the 2007 season. Billy Butler arrived a little later that season. No players have been with the club longer. So Butler figured it was appropriate that each of them had one of the RBIs that gave the Royals a 2-1 victory over the Orioles on Tuesday night in the American League Championship Series, putting them just one victory from the World Series.

The Royals are one win away from sweeping the Orioles in the ALCS and punching a ticket to the World Series, but the 3-0 lead doesn’t paint an accurate picture of how hard-fought this series has been.

Everything Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson said prior to Game 3 — about this AL Championship Series not going back to Baltimore and about the Orioles having to embrace their fate as second fiddles, should they go down 3-0 — is on the verge of proving prescient. For the O’s, that’s the annoyance served as a side dish to their adversity.

Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas is a man of the people, as he showed with his second highlight-reel play of Game 3 of the ALCS, lunging over the railing and into the crowd while making a catch on Adam Jones’ foul popup in the sixth inning.

This will be perhaps manager Buck Showalter’s toughest test. After cruising to a 96-win season, an American League East title and a sweep of the Tigers in the AL Division Series, Showalter’s Orioles are down 3-0 to the Royals in the AL Championship Series.

Jason Frasor’s performance, albeit under the radar, proved just as significant, if not more so, as the more heralded bullpen trio for the Royals in their 2-1 Game 3 victory Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium.

The Royals’ 2-1 win over the Orioles on Tuesday didn’t just put them on the verge of an American League Championship Series sweep; it gave them seven consecutive victories to start this postseason, a feat accomplished by only two other teams throughout baseball history, the 1976 Reds and 2007 Rockies.

Statcast technology illustrated just how Jarrod Dyson used his speed to score the winning run in the Royals’ 2-1 victory over the Orioles in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday night.

The Royals haven’t run out of ways to astonish the baseball world, as evidenced by Jeremy Guthrie’s gutty start and Mike Moustakas’ otherworldly defense in a Game 3 victory that has Kansas City one win from a trip to the World Series.

History is made every single October, yet the 2014 postseason is finding some truly unique and exciting ways to make its mark on the tapestry of baseball’s most dramatic month. We’re talking tight outcomes already at a record level, and extra innings like very few Octobers before it. Add to that bases-loaded tension, spectacular diving catches and the occasional walk-off sacrifice/error. It’s all there, awe-inspiring at every turn.

Standing just one win away from their first World Series berth since 1985, the Royals are sticking with lefty Jason Vargas for Game 4 on Wednesday rather than turning to James Shields to sweep away the Orioles in the American League Championship Series. Vargas will be opposed by right-hander Miguel Gonzalez.

The Orioles finally took their first lead of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday night, but they again fell victim to a Kansas City club that never stops putting the ball in play in a 2-1 Game 3 loss that puts the O’s on the brink of elimination.

Gregor Blanco’s bunt in the 10th inning Tuesday might as well have been a searing hit as St. Louis reliever Randy Choate fielded the ball and flung it past first base. The wayward throw enabled Brandon Crawford to score from second base, sealing San Francisco’s 5-4, 10-inning triumph over St. Louis in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.