{"id":2429729,"date":"2026-05-23T23:07:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2429729"},"modified":"2026-05-23T23:07:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:07:59","slug":"stephen-kolek-pitches-a-cgso-royals-beat-mariners-5-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/stephen-kolek-pitches-a-cgso-royals-beat-mariners-5-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Kolek pitches a CGSO, Royals beat Mariners 5-0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In today\u2019s game thread, I wrote that Stephen Kolek\u2019s second-best career start probably came against the Mariners last September, and we might need him to do even better if they were going to win today. As it turned out, they probably didn\u2019t need him to be quite that good, but he absolutely was anyway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Things got started fast for the Royals today. Stephen Kolek retired the Mariners in order on 10 pitches to start the game. Then, on the second pitch he saw, Maikel Garcia tattooed a line drive into the left-center gap for a leadoff double. Bobby Witt Jr. got an infield single that sent Maikel to third, and then Maikel scored on a groundball from Vinnie Pasquantino that was only ever likely to be worth one out, but became none when J.P. Crawford couldn\u2019t hang on to Cole Young\u2019s glove flip at second.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Salvador Perez came to the plate, and Bobby and Vinnie each took off on the first pitch, successfully swiping their bags and giving the Royals second and third with no one out. This is where you\u2019d expect the Royals to completely choke, and it looked like that\u2019s exactly what was going to happen. Salvy grounded to the pitcher, though George Kirby could only deflect it to Crawford. Crawford still managed to throw Sal out because he\u2019s so dang slow. Then Carter Jensen hit a soft roller to first, and when Josh Naylor realized he was going to have to run to the bag for the out, Bobby took off and scored.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sure, that gave the Royals two runs, but getting two straight weak outs after putting runners at second and third didn\u2019t feel good. Fortunately, Jac Caglianone came through with a single to right that scored Vinnie from second, and the Royals had a three-run lead. That was when it finally felt like maybe things could go their way today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bobby scored again in the third when Carter hit a shallow fly to left-center and Randy Arozerena couldn\u2019t get the throw home quite quickly enough. They scored their final run in the bottom of the sixth thanks to a single from Carter, a groundout by Jac that advanced Jensen to second, and a solid single to center from Isaac Collins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But Kolek will be the talk of today\u2019s game as he pitched the first complete game shutout by a Royals pitcher since Brad Keller in 2020. Despite the fact that he got only two strikeouts on the day, and none until the eighth inning, Kolek made it look easy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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tjstats.ca<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As you can see, this was far from what we\u2019ve come to expect from dominant pitching performances in 2026. He wasn\u2019t necessarily in the strike zone very often, he didn\u2019t get an excessive amount of chase, and the whiff% is frankly abysmal. But the Mariners couldn\u2019t square him up at all; they had four hits all day, and three of those were from Luke Raley. Even one of Raley\u2019s hits was an infield single. Thanks to his pitch efficiency, the inability of the Mariners to do anything with his pitches, and some slick infield defense that turned a pair of double plays on the day, Kolek faced only two batters over the minimum in this one. That is just absolutely wild.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This game was the first in a while for a lot of different things:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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  • As noted earlier, this was the first CGSO for a Royals pitcher since Brad Keller on September 13, 2020.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was the Royals\u2019 first complete game with any number of runs scored since Seth Lugo got the White Sox on July 21, 2024.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was Kolek\u2019s second career CGSO; he also got one against the Rockies in Coors Field while pitching for the Padres on May 10, 2025. He allowed 5 hits and 2 walks in that one, but did get 7 strikeouts, so it\u2019s up to you which one was more impressive.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was the first time the Royals had scored more than three runs in a game since last Friday, May 15.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was the first time the Royals had a three-run inning since May 13.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was the first time the Royals won a game by more than 2 runs since May 9.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was the first time the Royals had a three-run first inning since May 1 against Bryan Woo and the Mariners.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It was the best the Royals have looked on the field since at least May 13 and probably more like May 9<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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    Today\u2019s win gives the Royals a victory in the season series regardless of tomorrow\u2019s outcome, giving them a tiebreaker should it somehow matter by the time the season comes to an end. It would be really cool if this win was something of a turning point for the Royals. If so, hopefully we\u2019ll see more evidence of it in a victory tomorrow to win their first series since the Detroit series two weeks ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Tomorrow\u2019s game will air on Royals.TV at 1:10 p.m. Central time. Seth Lugo (3.68 ERA) will face Bryan Woo (3.51 ERA) in the rubber match. Woo has been one of the better pitchers in the AL this year, but the Royals got to him in Seattle to start the month. It would be fun to do it again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In today\u2019s game thread, I wrote that Stephen Kolek\u2019s second-best career start probably came against the Mariners last September, and we might need him to do even better if they were going to win today. As it turned out, they probably didn\u2019t need him to be quite that good, but he absolutely was anyway. Things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2429730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[455684],"class_list":["post-2429729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-kansas-city-royals-scores-standings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Stephen-Kolek-pitches-a-CGSO-Royals-beat-Mariners-5-0.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2429729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2429731,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429729\/revisions\/2429731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2429730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2429729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2429729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2429729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}