Things started off so well for the Royals, but one error led to a disaster second inning, and the Royals could never recover. They ultimately fell to the 2026 AL Central Division Champion Cleveland Guardians by a score of 11-5.
Michael Wacha faced only three in the first inning, and the offense went to work against Tanner Bibee in the bottom of the inning. Carter Jensen smoked another double leading off, then Bobby Witt Jr. singled to right. Carter had to hold at third, but scored one pitch later
when Bobby stole second, and the throw went into center field. Jac Caglianone ripped a double down the first base line to score Bobby. Jac himself would score a few batters later when Michael Massey hit a single into right.
In the top of the second, Jo Adell hit a routine grounder to Bobby, but the Platinum Glove winner booted it. You can’t blame that on Wacha, but even though all four runs that would eventually score in the inning were ruled unearned, Wacha was giving up some loud contact. Travis Bazzana smoked a double to right center, and Nathaniel Lowe got a well-struck sacrifice fly. Wacha got Angel Martínez to foul pop out, and you began to think he might escape the inning. Then Patrick Bailey bounced a home run off the base of the right field foul pole to tie the game. That would have been bad enough, but Brayan Rocchio doubled, and Steven Kwan tripled to give the Guardians a lead they would never relinquish.
Wacha gave up a lead-off home run to Chase DeLauter in the third. He gave up a final run in the sixth. Quatraro sent him out for the seventh so he could call him off the field after a single out for another ovation. Anthony Gose finally gave up his first run of the season. The first charged to him, anyway, when Rocchio homered to left.
The Royals added a pair in the bottom of the eighth thanks to a Bobby double, a Jac double, and a Vinnie single. Patrick Bailey and Brayan Rocchio got the runs right back in the bottom of the ninth with back-to-back dingers off of Alex Lange. Bailey had 29 career home runs in 463 games prior to tonight. He had never hit two in a game before. At least Rocchio has a history of showing flashes of power, even if he was batting ninth tonight.
Lange and Spencer Bivens combined to give up two more runs. No one cares how, least of all myself. So we’ll leave it at that. It took the two pitchers 50 pitches to escape the top of the ninth.
If I were a Chicago White Sox fan, I think I’d be pretty annoyed at the Royals leaving a clearly gassed Wacha out there – his changeups were hanging all night – instead of making a serious effort to win the game. But such are the vagaries of late September baseball. And it’s not like the bullpen did any better. Plus, Chicago could have beaten the woe-begotten Rockies and forced the division to be decided tomorrow, but they didn’t.
The Royals have one last game to play. They’ve certainly seemed this week like a team that’s more than ready to call it a season, so I don’t think I’ll be sad to see them go. Daniel Lynch IV will get the start for the Royals. The Guardians haven’t announced a starter, but don’t expect them to risk any of their most valuable players in a game that has become meaningless to them. The game, as has become standard on the final day of the season, will start at 2:10 PM Central Time. There are a couple of teams that will start earlier than that, but only because of the nor’easter and the fact that those games don’t really matter, either.
