TORONTO-- The Toronto Blue Jays got a pitching masterpiece from Marco Estrada in a one-sided 7-1 win on Wednesday to keep their season alive and put the Kansas City Royals' hopes of securing a World Series berth on hold.
  Estrada allowed three hits and one run in 7-2/3 innings and faced the minimum 18 batters through six innings as Toronto pulled to within 3-2 in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.
  "Today he was absolutely dynamite," Royals managers Ned Yost said of Estrada. "He didn't miss spots. His change-up was fantastic, he just didn't give us anything to hit."
  Chris Colabello gave Toronto the early lead with a second inning solo home run and Troy Tulowitzki broke the game open in the sixth when he lined a three-run double to centre to give the Blue Jays a 5-0 lead.
  The Royals will get another chance to clinch their second consecutive trip to the World Series when the series resumes in Kansas City on Friday.
  "We knew it was going to be a tough series," Yost told reporters. "After winning the first two games, in reality your goal is to come to Toronto, kind of a foreign environment, and at least win one.
  "Then you get to go home and win one there and the series is over. Now we're going back to a place where we are completely comfortable. That's why home field advantage was so important to us."
  Despite a momentum-building win the Blue Jays still face a daunting challenge. Only 12 of 79 MLB teams to trail a League Championship Series or World Series have rallied back to win the best-of-seven battle.
  The Royals, however, are aware as any team that anything can happen having twice erased similar deficits themselves.
  In the 1985 ALCS the roles were reversed with the Royals rallying from 3-1 down to beat Toronto and again versus the St. Louis Cardinals to win that year's World Series.
  It is not unfamiliar territory for Toronto, who dropped the opening two games of the best-of-five AL Division Series to the Texas Rangers before winning the next three games to advance.
  "We didn't panic and that's what we do," said Toronto manager John Gibbons. "That's what makes our offense so good. Guys take their walks and it sets up things for other guys."
  After two slugfests that produced 35 total runs, Game Five was a classic pitchers' duel between Estrada and Royals starter Edinson Volquez.
  Facing a do-or-die situation and their bullpen in tatters, Estrada delivered a performance the Blue Jays desperately needed while Volquez was nearly as effective limiting Toronto's big bats to one run until the sixth.
  Volquez began the inning with a lead off walk to Ben Revere then hit Josh Donaldson with a pitch and walked Jose Bautista to load the bases.
  He then walked Edwin Encarnacion to bring across a run before Tulowitzki brought the capacity crowd to its feet with a thundering shot to the wall.
  Toronto would add another run in the seventh to surge ahead 6-0 before Salvador Perez's two-out solo shot in the eighth would ruin the shutout.

LONDON-- Arsenal bounced back off the ropes to land two late sucker-punches and score an unlikely 2-0 win over Bayern Munich after the Germans had dominated an outstanding Champions League match on Tuesday.
  Olivier Giroud came off the bench after 74 minutes and headed the opener three minutes later while Mesut Ozil scored with virtually the last kick of the game against his World Cup-winning team mate Manuel Neuer to hand Arsenal a memorable victory.
  Their first win in Group F after two defeats rekindled their chances of reaching the last 16 and ended Bayern's run of 12 successive wins in all competitions.
  "It was important to reproduce our Premier League form tonight and we did that. We got the balance right between defence and attack," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger told reporters.
  But for long periods, it looked as if a goalless draw or a Bayern win would be the most likely outcome.
  Bayern dominated possession but could not find a way past a superb Arsenal defence in which Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker played superbly and Petr Cech made some important saves.
  At the other end, Arsenal had more chances, but never looked like getting the better of Neuer who made one stunning save to deny Theo Walcott from scoring with a header after 34 minutes, but then cost his team dearly when he flapped at Santi Cazorla's 77th minute freekick, allowing Giroud, who had just replaced Walcott, to stoop low and head home.
  Ozil scored on a breakaway with virtually the final kick when his shot just crossed the line with Neuer scooping it clear just too late.
  The victory means Bayern and Olympiakos have six points apiece, Dinamo Zagreb and Arsenal three each with Arsenal travelling to Munich and Olympiakos at home to Dinamo next.
  Bayern, without the injured Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery and Mario Goetze, still had plenty of potency going forward and although Robert Lewandowski, with 15 goals in his last seven games, was kept relatively quiet, they continually forced Arsenal on to the backfoot.
  Although there were no goals before the break, both teams produced football of the highest quality with the pace never relenting from the kickoff, which some 300 Bayern fans missed.
  They staged a "stay-away" for the first five minutes to protest over the cost of a ticket for the match, but when they took their seats, applause rang around the stadium from both home and visiting supporters.

TORONTO-- The Kansas City Royals pounced early then powered their way to a 14-2 demolition of the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday to move one win away from reaching the World Series for a second consecutive year.
  The Royals, with the help of a two-run homer from Ben Zobrist, scored four runs in the first inning then sealed the victory with a four-run seventh to seize a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.
  Game Five is in Toronto on Wednesday.
  "We feel good, we like the way we're playing right now," Royals manager Ned Yost told reporters. "Our offense has been really, really good.
  "We have (Edison) Volquez coming back tomorrow. Our defense is always spectacular and our bullpen is primed to go tomorrow too.
  "We're in really good shape."
  The Blue Jays, who won Monday's Game Three, sent 40-year-old knuckleballer R.A. Dickey to the mound with hopes of tying the series.
  But the former Cy Young Award winner gave up five runs in 1-2/3 innings that left Toronto in a 5-0 hole they could not overcome despite scoring two runs in the third and Australian reliever Liam Hendriks providing 4-1/3 innings of spotless relief to keep their comeback hopes alive.
  But the Royals ended any chance of a rally roughing up 42-year-old LaTroy Hawkins, who came on in the seventh but failed to record an out and gave up three runs on two hits and then roughed up reliever Ryan Tepera for four runs on five hits.
  In a final act of desperation to save his pitchers for what a do-or-die Game Five, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons sent utility infielder Cliff Pennington to the hill to get the final out which he finally managed but not before Kansas City pushed across two more runs to complete the rout.
  Pennington becomes the first positional player to pitch in an post-season game in the major leagues.
  Alcides Escobar, who sparked the offense with a leadoff single in the first, finished with four RBIs while Lorenzo Cain had three RBIS and Alex Rios chipped in with three hits.
  "It was ugly today, no doubt about that. That's all I can say," summed up Toronto manager John Gibbons. "It's a do or die game for us. But they do it all year.
  "I think these guys will let this one go and they'll show up to play tomorrow. Not a more important game this season, really. I know these guys will be ready."

TORONTO-- The Toronto Blue Jays belted three home runs to record an 11-8 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Monday that blasted their way back into the American League Championship Series.

Trailing the best-of-seven series 2-0 after losing both games in Kansas City, the Blue Jays returned home to the Roger Centre's hitter friendly confines and got a three-run shot from Troy Tulowitzki and a two-run homer from Josh Donaldson in a key six-run third inning that gave them a 9-2 lead.

Ryan Goins added a solo homer in the fifth for the Blue Jays.

Toronto host Game Four on Tuesday.