KANSAS CITY -- The Royals came home to Kansas City for Game 3 of the American League Division Series and gave a sold-out Kauffman Stadium its first postseason game since 2015. It was loud, and it was intense. Former Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer threw out the first pitch. Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes fired up the crowd from a suite at The K during what was an excellent postseason baseball game.

It’s just that the Royals ended up on the wrong side of it.

And after their 3-2 loss to the Yankees on Wednesday night, the Royals’ season is on the line in Game 4 on Thursday at Kauffman Stadium.

“I feel like we haven't even met, really, our full potential in these last three games,” Bobby Witt Jr. said. “Now I feel like we [can] come in tomorrow ready to rock.”

Giancarlo Stanton crushed a go-ahead solo homer off Royals reliever Kris Bubic in the eighth inning Wednesday night as part of a three-hit night for the Yankees' designated hitter, and it put New York up 2-1 in the series with Kansas City needing to win Game 4 to force a winner-take-all Game 5 back at Yankee Stadium.

“It was electric,” Royals center fielder Kyle Isbel said of the crowd. “They were great all night, really. Wish we gave them more to cheer for.”

Entering the 2024 Division Series, best-of-five postseason series that have been tied 1-1 have seen the team winning Game 3 go on to take the series 45 of 62 times (73%). Under the current 2-2-1 format, teams leading 2-1 and playing Game 4 on the road have taken the series 22 of 33 times (67%). Of those 22 series victories, 18 came on the road in Game 4.

That electric Royals crowd couldn’t stop baseball’s active home run leader from breaking out in vintage form. The Royals liked the matchup with the lefty Bubic against the right-handed Stanton; Bubic actually had better splits against righties this season, holding them to a .200 average compared to .286 against lefties.

But he got behind in the count, 3-1, and had thrown two consecutive sliders before he went down and in with a third one.

Stanton crushed it a Statcast-projected 417 feet to left field.

“It was more so the count than the pitch,” Bubic said. “The pitch was pretty good. To fall behind the count there, to a guy swinging the bat pretty well, this whole game and series, can’t happen. Especially late in the game, tight game. That’s kind of the theme of the whole inning, falling behind in counts. Put a good swing on a good pitch, and you tip your cap there. But I’ve got to be in better counts there and stay on it from the jump.”

Bubic walked two more batters before getting out of the inning. The Royals walked nine Yankees in Game 3, including starter Seth Lugo’s four walks in five innings.

Lugo largely staved off damage, except for the leadoff walk to Juan Soto in the fourth that turned into a run on Stanton’s double. A good relay throw from Witt would have likely caught Soto at the plate, but the throw was off-line.

“I tried to make quality pitches and some were just off the edge of the plate,” Lugo said. “Some I thought were there, some weren’t.”

Soto’s sacrifice fly in the top of the fifth inning gave the Yankees a two-run lead, but the Royals got it right back in the bottom of the frame with Isbel’s double and Michael Massey’s triple.

Relievers Angel Zerpa, John Schreiber, Sam Long and Brady Singer combined for two scoreless innings, with Singer making his postseason debut in the seventh. With a runner on base and Aaron Judge coming to the plate, manager Matt Quatraro called on Singer for the right-on-right matchup, despite Judge’s past performance (5-for-12) against Singer.

“He's aware of his strengths, and we trust him against the best hitters in the league,” Quatraro said of Singer. “He knew going into this series that that would be a possibility.”

Singer, who hasn’t pitched out of the bullpen since 2022, got Judge to strike out on a checked swing on a slider to keep the tie intact.

“I was able to have a little bit of time to get that planned out to face Judge,” Singer said. “And I had some time to dial it in the bullpen, get warmed up, go out there and [give] it my best shot.”

The Royals have yet to score against the Yankees’ bullpen in this series. They threatened in the eighth with two on after Witt’s first hit of the series, but nothing came of it.

Witt and Vinnie Pasquantino are now a combined 1-for-24 this series, although both drew walks on Wednesday.

“Doesn’t matter how I feel, it’s not good enough,” said Pasquantino, who came back from a broken thumb for the postseason. “We’ve got to figure out a way to make it good enough. Feel like I’ve had some pretty good swings, but nothing to show for it. That’s what matters.”