Friday night, the Royals beat the Blue Jays in Game 1 of the ALCS at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City (KC 5, TOR 0). The Royals lead the best-of-7 series 1-0, and Game 2 comes Saturday afternoon.

Here are seven things to know about Game 1 of the 2015 ALCS.

1. Volquez was gutsy. And effectively wild.

Command has been Edinson Volquez's biggest weakness throughout his career. He's improved in recent years, but he still fights it from time to time, like he did in Game 1. Volquez walked four in six innings, throwing 69 of his 111 pitches for strikes (62 percent).

And yet, Volquez kept the high-powered Blue Jays off the board, with only two singles allowed in addition to those four walks in six scoreless frames.

The sixth inning was the danger inning. Volquez was due to face Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion for the third time, which is pretty scary. Those are three great hitters and they were getting their third look at him. The third time through the order is typically when damage is most likely to happen.

Volquez walked Donaldson and Bautista to start the inning, but rebounded to escape the inning with a strikeout (Encarnacion), a fly out (Chris Colabello) and another strikeout (Troy Tulowitzki). He threw 37 pitches in the inning. That was gutsy. Volquez really had to battle. Heck of a job by the team's No. 3 starter in Game 1.

2. Perez hit his third homer in six postseason games.

Even by catcher standards, Salvador Perez had just an okay offensive season in 2015. He posted career lows in batting average (.260), on-base percentage (.280) and OPS+ (89), though he did set a new career high with 21 home runs.

The postseason has been a much different story. Perez went 4 for 14 (.286) with a .444 on-base percentage and two home runs in the ALDS, then went 1 for 3 with a solo home run in Game 1 of the ALCS. Not too many catchers have gone deep more than three times in one postseason.

Gene Tenace hit all four of his home runs in the World Series in 1972. Impressive, and it earned him World Series MVP honors. Anyway, Perez has at least four playoff games remaining this year to join that group of catchers with four homers in one postseason. There's also this:

Perez is building himself quite a postseason resume. Considering how many games he catches each year, it's impressive he still has gas left in the tank in October. He's something special.

3. The Royals did a lot of damage on the first pitch.

Kansas City scored their five runs on eight hits and one hit batsman. Four of those eight hits came in the first pitch of the at-bat, including Alcides Escobar's RBI double in the third inning and Perez's solo home run in the fourth inning.

The Royals swung at the first pitch in 13 of their 33 plate appearances in Game 1. Here are the results:

Four hits (two doubles, one single, one home run)
One sacrifice fly
One ground out
Four foul balls
Three swings and misses

Four hits and a sac fly out of six balls in play? That works! The Royals are an aggressive hitting team, and you don't want to fall behind in the count against Marco Estrada given his fastball/changeup combination, so they did a good job of ambushing hittable first pitches.

4. Tulowitzki is either slumping or still hurt. Or both.

A cracked shoulder blade sidelined Tulowitzki for three weeks in September. He was able to return and play two of the final three regular-season games as a postseason tune-up, but it hasn't helped. Tulowitzki went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in Game 1 on Friday. He hasn't hit at all in October.

Updating that stat for the rest of Game 1: Tulowitzki went 2 for 3 in Game 3 of the ALDS and has now gone 0 for 22 in his other five postseason games. In the sixth inning against Volquez, it appeared Tulo wanted no business at swinging at a fastball, instead taking two for called strikes (including strike three).

Either Tulowitziki's shoulder still isn't healthy, or he's in a major slump. Maybe both. But, given the nature of his injury and his quick return, chances are he's not 100 percent physically. The Blue Jays have the offense to compensate, but they're much better with a productive Tulo.

5. It's been a while since the Blue Jays' offense was shut down like this.

The Blue Jays had baseball's best offense during the regular season -- by a mile too, and it wasn't even close -- but the Royals shut them down pretty well in Game 1. Not only was Toronto shut out for just the second time since the All-Star break, they didn't even have an extra-base hit.

Toronto was blanked only five times during the regular season, the fewest in baseball. They had no extra-base hits in a game only four times, also the fewest in the baseball. You can count on one hand the number of times the Blue Jays were shut down like this during the regular season.

Heck of a job by Volquez and three Kansas City relievers (Kelvin Herrera, Ryan Madson, Luke Hochevar).

6. The Royals came very close to tying a record.

Volquez kept the Blue Jays hitless until Colabello's two-out single in the fourth inning. Had Volquez completed the inning without allowing that hit, the Royals would have tied the 1939 Yankees for the longest no-hit streak in postseason history at 11 innings. Kansas City hadn't allowed a hit since the second inning of Game 5 of the ALDS against the Astros. They didn't tie the record, but still, 10 straight innings without allowing a hit in October is a pretty great accomplishment, especially since the Astros and Blue Jays are good offensive clubs.

7. Madson vs. Colabello is a great story.

Forget about the postseason and all that for just a second. In the eighth inning, Madson faced Colabello in a meeting of two players with tremendous perseverance. Madson did not pitch at all from 2012-14 due to Tommy John surgery and subsequent setbacks. He even considered himself retired last year, as Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star explained recently.

Colabello, meanwhile, was never drafted and spent the 2005-11 (!) seasons playing in different independent leagues. The Twins scooped him up in 2012 and gave him an opportunity in affiliated ball, and now he's with the Blue Jays. Madson and Colabello overcame some big hurdles and long odds to get where they are. Pretty cool they got to face each other in the ALCS.

The Royals took Game 1 of the ALCS on Friday.
The Royals took Game 1 of the ALCS on Friday. (USATSI)