{"id":2471657,"date":"2026-06-23T06:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2471657"},"modified":"2026-06-23T06:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T06:58:16","slug":"royals-2-1-rays-jun-22-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-2-1-rays-jun-22-2026-game-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals 2-1 Rays (Jun 22, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8212; \u2014 <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/32640\/michael-wacha\">Michael Wacha<\/a> allowed one run over seven strong innings while <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/36409\/lane-thomas\">Lane Thomas<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/4917812\/carter-jensen\">Carter Jensen<\/a> had RBI to push the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/kc\/kansas-city-royals\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> past the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/tb\/tampa-bay-rays\">Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> 2-1 on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>              Wacha (5-5) allowed six hits, walked one and struck out five. The former Rays pitcher held Tampa Bay to 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and didn\u2019t allow a run until Yandy D\u00edaz\u2019s two-out double in the fifth plated <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/41359\/richie-palacios\">Richie Palacios<\/a> from first.<\/p>\n<p>              Kansas City got on the board in the second when <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/4109223\/michael-massey\">Michael Massey<\/a> drew a walk, just the second issued over a four-start stretch by Rays starter <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/42584\/drew-rasmussen\">Drew Rasmussen<\/a> (6-4). Massey scored from first on a double by Thomas.<\/p>\n<p>              Rasmussen then sat down 10 in a row before Jensen\u2019s fifth-inning single drove in <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/4314013\/nick-loftin\">Nick Loftin<\/a>, who\u2019d singled and stole second. After Jensen\u2019s hit, Rays pitchers retired the final 14 in order but Tampa Bay couldn\u2019t touch Wacha. The right-hander leads the American League with 11 quality starts this season.<\/p>\n<p>              Wacha got 10 ground-ball outs and Kansas City earned its fourth win in five games.<\/p>\n<p>              Jensen also threw out pinch runner <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/4917849\/victor-mesa-jr\">Victor Mesa Jr<\/a>. attempting to steal, ending the eighth. Before that, Tampa Bay fumbled scoring opportunities in five of the first seven innings and stranded five overall.<\/p>\n<p>              Royals closer <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/40976\/alex-lange\">Alex Lange<\/a> pitched a perfect ninth to record his sixth save.<\/p>\n<p>              <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/4679983\/chandler-simpson\">Chandler Simpson<\/a> had two hits for Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n<p>              Kansas City managed just four hits off Rays pitching, including Maikel Garcia\u2019s first-inning fly ball that caromed off the Tropicana Field catwalk and became a double when Rays shortstop <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/4626239\/ben-williamson\">Ben Williamson<\/a> couldn\u2019t make the catch.<\/p>\n<p>              <hl2>Up next<\/hl2>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>              LHP <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/41199\/shane-mcclanahan\">Shane McClanahan<\/a> (6-4, 3.33 ERA) gets the nod for the Rays opposite Royals RHP <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/5201985\/luinder-avila\">Luinder Avila<\/a> (2-3, 5.50) on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>              &#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>              AP MLB: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Fhub%2Fmlb&amp;data=05%7C02%7Csportsdesk%40ap.org%7C5a2150bd6ee5498d5e5608ded0c40d11%7Ce442e1abfd6b4ba3abf3b020eb50df37%7C1%7C0%7C639177737626675805%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=epjZ6C9S%2FeK2gs54qC48Qso7Z5rguQqg2l70E9nz%2FWE%3D&amp;reserved=0\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.espn.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8212; \u2014 Michael Wacha allowed one run over seven strong innings while Lane Thomas and Carter Jensen had RBI to push the Kansas City Royals past the Tampa Bay Rays 2-1 on Monday night. Wacha (5-5) allowed six hits, walked one and struck out five. The former Rays pitcher held Tampa Bay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2471658,"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-2471657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Royals-2-1-Rays-Jun-22-2026-Game-Recap.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471657","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=2471657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2471659,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471657\/revisions\/2471659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2471658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}