The Royals could not continue the offensive explosion of the last two games for another day. We saw baseball style scoring rather than football on Wednesday, at least until right at the end. New York scored 5 runs in the 8th inning to take this one 6-2.
New York got off to a fast start. Steven Cruz grooved a 2-0 pitch to leadoff hitter AJ Ewing and he drove it over the wall a little right of center. It was not an ideal start for Cruz as the opener, but he struck out two and got out of his inning with only one run of damage done.
Christian Scott made the start for New York and he had a solid night. In the first, Bobby Witt got an infield single without really having any threat from there. His second frame he walked Nick Loftin and then Isaac Collins singled to move Loftin to third and create the only jam of the night for Scott. He got out of it. Then he went on to three easy innings. He could not go deep in the game, however, due to those first two innings taking 49 pitches. It took 8 pitches to strike out Lane Thomas in the first and 7 a piece on the walk and single in the second. So, Scott looked very good and also left after five innings.
That mattered because the Mets bullpen was pretty taxed, so taxed that they had pulled up two arms from the minors in moves earlier today. One of those called up, Tobias Myers, came in for the 6th and 7th. Jac Caglianone lined a 113 MPH ball off the wall in right center for a double in the 6th and then moved to third on Lane’s groundout to third that pulled Bichette into foul territory and opened up the bag for Cags to take. Salvador Perez battled Myers until he got the 9th pitch of the at bat for a single to bring in Caglianone and tie the game up 1-1.
I want to apologize for throwing some shade toward Randy Dobnak in the game discussion writeup. He took over for Cruz in the second and then went 5 2/3 innings as the bulk guy. He had some help from the defense. In particular, he got in a bit of trouble in the 3rd inning. With 2 outs, Juan Soto did what he does and took a walk. Bo Bichette followed that up with a single to center and brought Francisco Lindor up with two runners on. He hit the ball well to right field, but Tyler Tolbert made a running catch at the wall that I wanted to embed here for you and MLB Film Room has it linked wrong, sorry.
Regardless, a few hard-hit balls and one near miss was all Dobnak really gave the Mets. He finished with a line of 5 2/3 IP, 3H, 3BB, 2K, 0ER before Matt Strahm came in to finish the 7th on a strike out call that Ewing wanted to challenge. The Mets has lost both challenges already, and if they had not, he would have lost that one. We were now into a bullpen battle.
Lane Thomas doubled off of Brooks Raley in the 8th to give the Royals a chance at a lead. It was not to be and it started to shuffle some players around. Starling Marte pinch hit for Michael Massey with two outs and ended the inning. He moved to right field where Tolbert had been, and Tolbert took over second base. Alex Lange came in for the 8th with Soto, Bichette, and Lindor coming up. Now he is fireman rather than traditional closer? Lange made quick work of the first two before Lindor singled to right and Carson Benge worked a walk in a long plate appearance. Jorge Polance came up for just the second NY attempt with a runner in scoring position. He hit a roller to Jac at first in a weird spot that made it hard for Lange to cover first. That led to an awkward and late flip to first and loaded up the bases for Jared Young who Alex hit with a pitch on the elbow to give the lead back to the Mets. Brett Baty quickly extended the Mets new lead with a single to the right center gap, 4-1 and Jose Cuas was brought in to try and end this long two out rally.
Cuas’ first pitch was WAY outside to add yet another run to ledger and the inning just would not end. Franciso Alvarez singled to left and scored Baty. Ewing followed that with a double and Soto was intentionally walked so that the bases were loaded yet again.
Xzavion Curry came in for the Mets in the 9th, his debut for them and for 2026. He has a track record that said the Royals had a shot a big comeback. Similar to the disaster 8th for the Royals, the Mets got two outs right away and looked comfortable. Josh Rojas came on to pinch hit with no one on and two down and worked a walk. Carter Jensen doubled to drive him in and make it look like the comeback could be on. But Bobby struck out and the game was over.
This series will be decided starting at noon central tomorrow. Then one more series to the All-Star Break and Jac Caglianone’s home run derby debut.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com ’
