<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong> \u2014 Curtis Mead smashed a tiebreaking three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to power the Washington Nationals to a 6-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The victory positions the Nationals for a three-game series sweep on Wednesday, while handing the sliding Royals their sixth loss in seven games. With the defeat, Kansas City drops to a season-high 16 games under .500.<\/p>\n While Mead provided the definitive blast, second baseman Nasim Nu\u00f1ez was the catalyst all night for Washington. Nu\u00f1ez tripled twice, scored three times, and drove in a run.<\/p>\n He opened the scoring in the third inning with an RBI triple, later crossing the plate on a James Wood sacrifice fly. After Kansas City\u2019s Bobby Witt Jr. drove in a run with a single in the fifth, Nu\u00f1ez immediately responded in the bottom half of the frame with his second triple of the night, scoring once again on a Wood single. Nu\u00f1ez also flashed the leather early, making a spectacular diving catch to rob Tyler Tolbert of a hit in the second inning.<\/p>\n Washington starter Foster Griffin, a former first-round pick of the Royals a dozen years ago, turning in a strong performance. Griffin allowed just one run on six hits across six innings, striking out six. It marked his fourth outing in his last five starts allowing one run or fewer.<\/p>\n However, the Royals fought back against Washington\u2019s bullpen in the seventh. Isaac Collins delivered a clutch, two-out, two-run single to knot the game at 3-3.<\/p>\n The tie didn\u2019t last long. In the bottom of the seventh, Nu\u00f1ez drew a leadoff walk and manufactured a crucial hustle play, beating a double-play turn from shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. on a grounder by James Wood. After Nu\u00f1ez stole third base, pinch-hitter Andr\u00e9s Chaparro drew a walk, setting the stage for Mead. Mead launched an 11th-hour drive to left-center field for his 11th home run of the year, putting Washington ahead 6-3.<\/p>\n Paxton Schultz (1-2) earned the relief win despite the blown lead, while Daniel Lynch IV (2-1) took the loss for Kansas City.<\/p>\n Gus Varland came on to pitch the ninth to secure his sixth save. Varland surrendered a solo home run to former National Lane Thomas, but shut the door from there to seal the 6-4 win.<\/p>\n The loss highlighted a persistent trend for the Royals, who fell to a major league-worst 3-17 against left-handed starting pitchers this season. The defeat also spoiled a quality start from Michael Wacha, who allowed three runs over six innings. It was Kansas City\u2019s 35th quality start of the year\u2014second only to the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2014though the Royals drop to a frustrating 19-16 in those games.<\/p>\n Adding injury to insult, the banged-up Royals were forced to remove third baseman Maikel Garcia from the game in the sixth inning due to soreness in his left hand.<\/p>\n The Nationals will look to complete the sweep on Wednesday, sending right-hander Zack Littell (6-5, 5.32 ERA) to the mound. The Royals will counter with Luinder Avila (1-3, 6.19 ERA) as they look to salvage the series finale.<\/p>\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 sunflowerstateradio.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Curtis Mead smashed a tiebreaking three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to power the Washington Nationals to a 6-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday night. The victory positions the Nationals for a three-game series sweep on Wednesday, while handing the sliding Royals their sixth loss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2199747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2463940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Royals-Acquire-Outfielder-Isaac-Collins-and-Pitcher-Nick-Mears-from.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463940","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=2463940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2463941,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463940\/revisions\/2463941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2199747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2463940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2463940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2463940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Nu\u00f1ez Sparks the Offense<\/h2>\n
Late-Inning Drama<\/h2>\n
Closing It Out<\/h2>\n
Up Next<\/h2>\n