Royals snatch defeat from jaws of victory in 4-3 loss to Yankees

Another ninth-inning meltdown wasted a great start from Michael Wacha in a 4-3 loss to the Yankees. This is just brutal to watch. It’s infuriating. The Royals held a 3-2 lead going into the 9th inning, which currently belongs to Lucas Erceg. I’m not sure it will for much longer.

In that inning, Salvador Perez was playing first base because Quatraro pinch-ran for Pasquantino earlier. Paul Goldschmidt hit a little pop-dribbler hybrid thing that Bobby Witt could not get to in time. With one out and a runner on first, Perez was hugging the line to protect against the grounder-down-the-line double. Unfortunately, Jazz Chisholm hit a line drive exactly to where a first baseman would normally be standing, but Perez could not reach it. With Tyler Tolbert in RF instead of Jac Caglianone, Chisholm hustled for a double. With one out and runners on second and third, Anthony Volpe singled to left field to bring both runners in. That put the Yankees ahead 4-3, and it felt like it was over with the bottom of the lineup coming in for the bottom of the ninth. The Royals got one guy on but could do nothing with him.

This hurts. Wacha threw yet another quality start – 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 5 K. The offense sputtered but put together enough runs to have a lead in the ninth. In the second inning, Perez led off with an ABS challenge to get a walk. He’s pretty good at ABS. Jac Caglianone went down 0-2 and then worked a walk. Isaac Collins went down 1-2 and also worked a walk to load the bases. Massey hit a lazy fly ball deep enough in the left-center field gap to bring in Perez on a sac fly. In the bottom of the 6th, Salvador Perez got a meatball that he hit almost into the fountains to tie the game 2-2. It was his 9th of the season. Bobby Witt Jr took a slider well beyond the left field fence in the 8th inning for a go-ahead solo homer to make it 3-2. It was Witt’s 8th homer of the season.

In the 7th inning, the Royals almost plated another run. Would have helped. Nick Loftin hustle-doubled a pop fly that CF Trent Grisham got a poor read on off the bat. He went backwards first and then sorta jogged for a sec before he made an attempt to charge in for the short fly ball. It dropped between three fielders and Loftin barely beat the tag at second. He advanced to third on a deep fly ball to left-center field. Garcia hit a weak grounder to the shortstop, but not weak enough to make it close at first base. The Royals were unable to score.

It wasn’t just the pitching either. The Royals flashed some leather too. Bobby Witt robbed a line drive up the middle from Ben Rice with a jumping, reaching catch. A double play got Wacha out of a jam in the third inning. Massey ranged to his right and threw on the run moving away from first base to get Jazz Chisholm out. Wacha was able to use his defense to work around runners on base in the third and fourth. He got a lot of quick outs and was at 93 pitches in the 7th inning. He was efficient and effective. His primary mistake was just a happy-zone four-seam fastball to Cody Bellinger that he blasted into the right-field bullpen. The Yankees put across another run with a walk and two singles.

Overall, it felt like a close game that the Royals had a real chance to win even with the relatively low offensive output. Just, once again, they cannot rely on anyone to close the game out with any sort of confidence. Erceg almost blew the game yesterday too.

The Royals are in a deep hole with the Guardians playing well above them as well as the upstart Chicago White Sox (??? How?). They cannot keep doing this and expect the season to end well.

The Royals move to 22-32. The Yankees move to 32-22. They play again tomorrow at 6:40pm US Central.