Don’t look now—but the Kansas City Royals officially have themselves a win streak. The Royals secured their third consecutive win (and fifth of their last six games) with a gutsy, impressive come-from-behind 5-3 win over the Texas Rangers.
The first few innings of the game were not particularly kind to the Royals. Texas starter and longtime veteran Nathan Eovaldi was initially excellent, navigating the first four innings without allowing a hit. Meanwhile, though Kansas City starter Stephen Kolek was plenty competent, the Rangers were able to chip away. They scored one in the second inning from a Wyatt Langford walk and back-to-back hits by Ezequiel Duran and Jake Burger. The Rangers—or, well, Evan Carter—scored in the fourth inning with a single, some baserunning gumption, and bad Royals defense. Afterwards, it was 2-0, Rangers.
By the fifth inning, you started to wonder if Eovaldi would be able to shut out the Royals offense and send Kansas City sports fans home sad yet again; they only scored four runs total in their previous series at Kauffman Stadium against the Yankees, after all.
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Fortunately, Jac Caglianone said no. After working a wildly impressive 11-pitch walk his first time up, it was time to hit. And Cags did, uncorking a beauty of a home run to right field for a solo shot to disassemble Eovaldi’s no-hit bid and put the Royals on the board.
Though the Royals wouldn’t score that inning, Cags’ home run broke the seal. The Royals started making hard contact on Eovaldi left and right. Carter Jensen led off with a ringing double in the sixth inning, and scored two batters later off a Maikel Garcia triple. Vinnie Pasquantino summoned the right field Pasquatch by launching a ground rule double to center field. That gave the Royals a 3-2 lead.
Then, Cags came up to bat against a brand new pitcher, lefty Jalen Beeks. Jac saw one pitch. He hit one pitch. And thus, a two-home run game was his. That gave the Royals a 5-2 lead.
The Rangers would claw another run back following a Joc Pederson triple in the seventh inning. Fortunately, that was the last run they would score. For a minute there, it sure looked like the Royals would need that extra insurance. Alex Lange came out of the bullpen to secure a save in the ninth inning and uncorked seven consecutive balls—well, six, and then a generous “strike” that the Rangers fortunately did not challenge. Two passed balls skipped by Jensen’s, which put Burger at third base. But Lange struck out Pederson to end the inning and the game.
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One thing to keep an eye on after tonight’s contest is Kyle Isbel. Isbel rounded first base a little gimpy, and he was immediately taken out of the game to be replaced by Tyler Tolbert on the bases and then in center field. Hopefully it’s nothing too major.
Regardless, this was an impressive win for the Royals. It was the type of game two weeks ago that would have gotten out of hand, but Kansas City fought their way back. Caglianone finished the night with another single, putting him on base four times. The sooner he can get ahead of Salvador Perez in the lineup (who went 0-4 to lower his on base percentage on the year to an even .250), the better it will be for everyone. And just like that, the Royals are 4.5 games out of the third Wild Card spot.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’
