KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Gerrit Cole pitched like a postseason ace Thursday night, holding the Kansas City Royals to one run over seven innings and sending the New York Yankees to a 3-1 victory that put them back in the American League Championship Series.

The six-time All-Star scattered six hits and struck out four before handing the ball to the New York bullpen, which dominated a close AL Division Series. Clay Holmes pitched a perfect eighth inning and Luke Weaver blazed through the ninth, extending the Yankees relievers’ scoreless streak this postseason to 15⅔ innings.

New York will play either Cleveland or Detroit in the ALCS at Yankee Stadium starting Monday evening.

Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres and Game 3 star Giancarlo Stanton drove in runs for the Yankees, who fittingly clinched a spot in their fourth ALCS in eight years on the road. They won 50 games away from home in the regular season, the most in 21 years.

Michael Wacha failed to get through five innings for Kansas City, allowing two runs, six hits and a walk. He didn’t get much help from a prolonged offense that saw just five runs total in the final three games of the series.

Still, it was a remarkable turnaround for a club that went from a laughing stock with 106 losses a year ago to its first postseason appearance since winning the 2015 World Series. And now young stars like Bobby Witt Jr. have signed long-term deals, there is hope in Kansas City that this was a beginning rather than an end.

New York set the tone from the start, attacking Wacha like in the series opener. Torres hit the veteran right-hander’s first pitch of the game for a double, and Soto followed with an RBI single on just the third pitch of the night.

Anthony Volpe kept the pressure on with his single in the fifth. And after Alex Verdugo grounded into a force out and Jon Berti singled to put runners on the corners, Torres lined with two outs to make it 2-0 and end Wacha’s evening.

Meanwhile, Cole only seemed to get stronger as he closed out innings.

The reigning Cy Young Award winner retired his first six batters, worked around a leadoff single in the third and retired eight more before Tommy Pham’s single in the fifth. Cole promptly retired Kyle Isbel on three pitches to end that inning.

Stanton, who hit the go-ahead homer in the eighth inning in Game 3, extended the lead to 3-0 with his single in the sixth.

The tensions that had simmered all night — and all series, after Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. had called the Royals’ Game 2 victory “lucky” — finally boiled over in the sixth. Volpe hit a hard hit on Maikel Garcia at second base to complete a double play, and the Royals’ third baseman took offense. Players left both dugouts before order was restored.

The near-fights also nearly set Kansas City on fire. Witt, who had gone 1-for-15 in the series, followed with a single and Vinnie Pasquantino – who had gone 0-for-14 – had an RBI double. But when the sellout crowd of 39,012 at Kauffman Stadium was suddenly whipped into a frenzy, Cole got Salvador Perez to pop out to second base to end the inning.

Cole’s night ended after he got Isbel to fly to the warning track with a runner on board to end the seventh, a deep shot to right field that would have been a game-tying homer if it had hit that part of Yankee Stadium.

New York’s bullpen did the rest.