Royals' Ragans pulled after 6 scoreless innings with calf cramp

Kansas City Royals ace Cole Ragans left Tuesday's 1-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles with calf cramps, the team announced.

Ragans struck out eight across six scoreless innings on 80 pitches before being removed from his first career postseason start.

"I felt it grabbing a little bit," Ragans said postgame, according to MASN's Roch Kubatko.

"I didn't want to push it too far. I want to be healthy. I plan on having quite a few more starts. So I just didn't want to push it to where it ends up, you know, being something more serious than it needs to be."

Sam Long entered the contest in relief of Ragans in the seventh inning and retired the Orioles to hold the narrow lead.

The biggest moment from Ragans' dominant outing came in the fifth inning when the lefty struck out both James McCann and Gunnar Henderson to strand runners on first and third.

Ragans posted a 3.14 ERA and 1.14 WHIP with 223 strikeouts across 32 regular-season starts.

The Royals are competing in the playoffs for the first time since 2015.