The Royals’ bats continued the vanishing act they have taken on the road so often this year, and the Royals dropped the series opener to the Cardinals.
Michael Wacha, for the first time since his last start, did his job. He pitched six innings, allowing three runs. Would you like more innings and fewer runs? Always. But the odds of getting either are very low, even with Wacha pitching as well as he has this year.
Dustin May, unfortunately, matched him, which made it a three-inning game between the bullpens. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but my sense is that the Royals’ bullpen has done a pretty good job of holding leads, but they’ve been abysmal at keeping tied or losing games from getting worse.
The Royals got the scoring going in the fourth inning. Vinnie Pasquantino drew a walk; Salvador Perez hit a long single off the right-field wall. The broadcast noted that it took a good defensive play to prevent Vinnie from scoring on that hit. If Vinnie nearly scored from first, how did Sal not end up at second? One might imagine it’s the nagging hip and groin injuries he’s been dealing with all year. And still he plays almost every day and bats cleanup.
No problem, Carter Jensen hit a double into the left-center gap! Run scored and Salvy to third. Except, if Sal had been capable of running and at second, he could have scored on that play, too. No problem, Isaac Collins followed a Jac Caglianone walk with a deep fly to right to sacrifice Sal home. When I started this paragraph, I thought I had a point about how Sal’s inability to run had hurt the Royals in a way that isn’t obvious from the box score. If I had such a point, I’ve lost it. It’s late. Let’s just move on. The Royals had the bases loaded with one out and managed no hits and only one run from that point on.
Michael Wacha gave up a two-run home run to Jordan Walker in the bottom of the inning. Tie game.
In the bottom of the fifth, Pedro Pagés hit a home run to almost the same spot and gave the Cardinals the lead.
The Royals answered in the top of the sixth. Vinnie walked again. Sal flew out softly. Jensen and Caglianone singled on groundballs to the right side to load the bases. Once again, bases loaded one out. Once again, only one run scored. This time Collins hit a groundball to first and Alec Burleson chose to step on the bag before throwing home, but Vinnie beat the throw to tie the game.
Daniel Lynch IV opened the seventh inning by allowing a double; he struck out the next two and escaped unscathed. Nick Mears got the eighth and walked the leadoff guy before escaping without allowing a run. Matt Strahm got the ninth and also allowed the leadoff hitter on. He got a strikeout, a walk, and a flyout before John Schreiber was asked to get out the right-handed Iván Herrera. Never mind that Strahm has proven more effective in his career against righties than lefties. Schreiber gave up a hard liner to center and Kyle Isbel made a diving catch to send it into extras.
With Maikel Garcia starting on second, Bobby Witt Jr. immediately smashed a double into center. Nathan Church almost turned it into an inside-the-park home run with a terrible route but managed a diving stop. Vinnie popped up, Salvy struck out in yet another awful at-bat. Carter Jensen got intentionally walked. Now, why would you walk Carter to get to Jac? Oh, because Jac was out of the game. He was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the eighth with no one on and two out because a left-handed reliever was on the mound. At some point, pinch-hitting for Jac in situations like those has to be more damaging to his psyche than the occasional awkward at-bat against a left-handed pitcher. It’s not like the Royals even needed a contact guy at the plate to give them a better chance to drive in a runner before the inning had ended. There were two outs and no one on.
Also, Carter Jensen has a 54 wRC+ against lefties this year to Jac’s 58. So why doesn’t he get pinch-hit for? Make it make sense.
Anyway, with Lane Thomas due up, Carter got intentionally walked, and Lane took a predictably terrible at-bat against the right-handed Ryne Stanek. Lucas Erceg was brought in to preserve the one-run lead. His first pitch got lined into right to tie the game. He managed to prevent the Cardinals from scoring again, so to the eleventh we went.
This time, Lane Thomas started at second. Isaac Collins drew a walk – he had only two official at-bats in the game thanks to a pair of walks and a sacrifice fly. 0-2 with 2 RBIs has an argument as the best hitting performance in the Royals’ lineup tonight. Michael Massey came to the plate and attempted to bunt the runners over. He popped both of his attempts foul before hitting a moderately deep flyball to left. I would have liked to see Lane Thomas try for third there. The Royals weren’t getting hits, he’s fast, so why not see if he can get in range of a sacrifice fly? But he bluffed and didn’t go. Isbel grounded into a fielder’s choice – which could have scored a run if Thomas had been at third – and Garcia grounded out to end the “threat”.
Steven Cruz got the bottom of the eleventh. The Cardinals gifted him a sacrifice bunt before he got a chopper from Jose Fermín. Then, as the Royals have done so many times this year, he gave up the big hit he’d miraculously avoided until there were two outs. Yohel Pozo, pinch-hitting for the pinch-runner Thomas Saggese, smoked one through the shifted infield to right, and the Cardinals had won.
There’s not a lot of positives to build on out of this one. Wacha now has seven quality starts out of nine. But the Royals have now lost five in a row, and basically all the ground they had made up over the 11-5 stretch that followed their eight-game losing stretch is gone, but with 21 more games in the books. They’re still only 4.5 back in the division and 2.5 back of a Wild Card spot because the American League is ridiculous, but at some point, you have to think one of these teams will actually start winning some baseball games. With every loss, it feels less like that team might be the Royals.
Noah Cameron (5.55 ERA) will take the mound tomorrow afternoon to face Kyle Leahy (4.31 ERA). The game will air at 1:15 p.m. Central on Royals.TV. This is a friendly reminder that tomorrow is a continuation of Rivals weekend, and literally every game will be free on MLB.TV. If you’re fed up with KC, you have alternatives. Until tomorrow afternoon, good night and good luck.
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