The Tigers have been known since this time last season for running the bases with reckless abandon. It is somewhat fitting, then, that the Tigers wasted a scoring opportunity that potentially cost them the game with overly cautious baserunning. But we’ll come back to that.
First, we have to talk about Stephen Kolek. As noted in the gamethread, Kolek was mediocre with poor strikeout numbers in San Diego. He was bad in Omaha (though, if you could remove one start, he’d look much better). So expectations
were pretty low for him. Naturally, he pitched six innings and allowed only a single run on four hits, no walks, and three strikeouts. It wasn’t perfect – he only had a 14% whiff rate, which you wouldn’t imagine would get the job done most nights, but it was plenty tonight and significantly better than anything Bailey Falter ever did or even how Seth Lugo has looked lately. My vote, for all that it’s worth, is that Kolek starts in Lugo’s next turn in the rotation rather than returning to Omaha.
The lone blemish on Kolek’s name came in the top of the third. He gave up a pair of singles to lead off the inning and the Tigers leveraged their signature playing style to put runners on first and third with no one out. Kolek managed to induce a groundball from Andy Ibáñez right to Maikel Garcia. Garcia chose to go home and cut down the runner there, leaving runners at first and second now with one out. Kolek got Colt Keith to fly out, but Gleyber Torres, who many had wished the Royals would sign this past offseason, came through with a two-out RBI single.
The Royals got it back quickly in the bottom of the fourth inning.
As the embedded post notes, that was Maikel Garcia’s fifteenth bomb of the season, extending his career high even further.
And that brings us to the seventh inning, and back to the initial paragraph. Johnny “Leverage” Schreiber came in hoping to keep the game tied. He got a flyout from the dangerous Riley Greene, but then allowed a single to Wenceel Pérez. Dillon Dingler followed that up with a single to center and Pérez – say it with me now – attempted to take the extra base. Unfortunately for the Royals, Kyle Isbel thought he could throw him out. The throw wasn’t particularly close, but Dingler took second. With runners at second and third and one out, Schreiber had one job – keep it out of the air. Naturally, Trey Sweeney managed to hit one in the air – but to shallow right. Pérez tagged up as Mike Yastrzemski circled under the ball. It seemed certain the outcome of the game would hinge on whether Yaz could make an accurate throw to the plate. It seemed sure to be close.
Yastrzemski uncorked a strong throw to home, and Pérez decided only to bluff a scoring attempt. This was very fortunate for the Royals because the throw was strong but wild and caromed off the backstop and up the third base line before Schreiber was able to corral it. But all Pérez could do was take another couple of steps off third before realizing he had no chance now. Schreiber was lifted for Angel Zerpa because the Royals wanted to flip Ibáñez around, but the Tigers pinch-hit with lefty Zach McKinstry. He grounded out to second to end the inning.
And things then stayed quiet until the bottom of the eighth when manager Matt Quatraro, with his team facing a lefty out of the pen in Tyler Holton, decided to start pinch-hitting. Nick Loftin came in for Kyle Isbel and gave a couple of pitches a ride deep down the left field line, but both were foul before he eventually flew out to right. Then, in what was perhaps the riskiest move he’s made all season, Quatraro decided to pinch-hit Tyler Tolbert for Yastrzemski.
Tolbert has fewer plate appearances than he does games played at the big league level. He is not here to hit. That said, he had had six pinch-hit plate appearances prior to this. He had never gotten a hit and he’d struck out three times. But every time he had pinch hit before now had been in garbage time of games already decided by large margins.
So, yeah, this was Tolbert’s first time intentionally hitting late in a close game. He had another first, too. It wasn’t his first pinch hit, but it was his first walk at the big league level. Period. Then, with Tolbert at first distracting Holton, who had to face Bobby Witt Jr. due to the three-batter minimum rule, threw a fastball that was a bit too straight and Bobby did this.
And Bobby says he’s having a down year. Oh, by the way, he also made a couple of spectacular defensive plays on the night to help keep the Tigers off the board, too.
Lucas Erceg pitched the top of the eighth and looked about as good as he has in months, striking out one in a clean inning. Carlos Estévez notched his Major League-leading 36th save while only allowing a double to Riley Greene that a better left fielder than Nick Loftin might have caught.
By the way, the Mariners and Red Sox each lost for the second night in a row, so the Royals are now only two games back of a playoff spot and 4.5 back of having a cushion. Their playoff odds now stand at 15.9% per FanGraphs.
KC will have a chance to go for the series victory tomorrow, which would be their first over the Tigers all year. Though, in their defense, they also have never been swept by the Tigers, either. They’re going to have an uphill battle as erstwhile and presumptive Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal, will take the mound for the Tigers. Michael Wacha will return from the paternity list to go for the Royals. The game will start at 1:10 CDT, and will be simulcast on KCTV5 and KSMO.
P.S. No matter what happens tomorrow, the Royals will finish August no worse than 16-12. That will give them a winning record in every month except June. Just something to think about.
