The last time I was physically here at Kauffman Stadium for a baseball game was on September 4, where I witnessed Daniel Lynch IV immediately give up five runs in two innings and functionally take the Royals out of the contest before it began. I got worked up enough about it that I wrote about it that weekend, where I said that the Lynch starter experiment was going exactly how everyone knew it would because of Lynch’s inability to get right-handed batters out with his awful changeup. I linked multiple
videos of Lynch hanging changes on a line to those righties.
You can therefore imagine my displeasure at walking into the clubhouse this afternoon, checking my phone to see who was officially starting, and seeing Lynch’s name pop up. I feared a Groundhog’s Day situation.
Unfortunately for me and the meager collection of Royals die-hards watching in person, that’s what happened. The White Sox crushed Royals pitching to the tune of 14 runs, and no amount of late game heroics could lessen the gap. Final score: 14-11, White Sox.
It began early. Witness this rocket line drive off a changeup in the first inning! It was from right-handed batter Chase Meidroth.
Oh, and this laser of an opposite-field home run from right-handed Brenton Doyle. It came off, you guessed it, a changeup.
And this—hark! Another Meidroth homer off another changeup!
After three innings, the White Sox had thwomped their way to a 6-0 lead, which was cut to a whole 6-1 lead by a solo Nick Loftin home run in the bottom of the sixth.
But Lynch was still pitching, and so you could probably bet that five-run lead might balloon further. Sure enough, it did. In the fourth inning, Lynch managed to get two outs but then ran into a row of right-handed batters and, well. You know what happened. Miguel Vargas single, Tommy Pham walk, Randal Grichuk home run. 9-1, White Sox.
At this point, I packed up my belongings and left to listen to the game on the drive and follow from home. Getting credentials is an honor, but what is also great is that, since I’m not a beat writer, I can bail when it’s clear that postgame pressers are not going to yield any particularly interesting pieces of information. Both teams packed it in after the seventh inning; the White Sox removed Miguel Vargas, Tommy Pham, and Braden Montgomery, while the Royals removed Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez.
Kansas City’s offense, however, did not go quietly into the night. The Royals struck in three consecutive innings against Chicago starter Anthony Kay, with Witt accruing three hits. They managed a trio of runs against Trevor Richards in the eighth, with a pair of extra base hits by the Italian Stallions Jac Caglianone and Vinnie Pasquantino providing the power. And then, in the ninth inning, Tyler Tolbert singled, and Caglianone singled, and Maikel Garcia worked his third walk of the game. Pasquantino then crushed a grand slam to right-center field. It was glorious.
But any hope the Royals had of a great comeback was stymied by, you guessed it, the bullpen. In his Royals debut and his 2026 debut, Tony Gonsolin—who has only pitched 36 MLB innings the last two seasons due to injury—pitched two clean innings and exploded in the seventh, giving up a double to Grichuk and a homer to Munetaka Murakami. Then, he loaded the bases and walked home another run, which prompted Matt Quatraro to remove him in favor of Nolan Hoffman. Hoffman immediately gave up a single to Andrew Benintendi to push the score to 14-4.
As a result, even though the Royals scored 11 runs, they didn’t score a single run down by less than six. Since August 30, the Royals have won two (2) games where they have scored fewer than five runs. That’s because they’ve given up, on average, 5.5 games during that 20-game span.
This is the Royals’ fifth consecutive loss, their eighth loss in their last nine games, and their 15th in their last 20. Remember when the Royals won 13 of 15? They were 13 games under .500 after that first win.
Tonight, the Royals officially wipe all those gains away, and are now 13 games under again. Winning 70 games seems like a longshot. Eat Arby’s.
