The Athletics have the only bullpen worse than the Royals by ERA in 2026. For the second night in a row, they let Kansas City take away a Sacramento lead. The Royals took the game 9-7 and set up a possible four game sweep for tomorrow afternoon.
The day started poorly for Seth Lugo who gave up three consecutive hits to the first three batters of the game. All three were hard hit ground balls that found holes. Henry Bolte, Jeff McNeil, and Zack Gelof hit the ball 110, 105.8, and 102.9 mph respectively
while giving the Athletics a quick 2-0 lead. McNeil’s was a double as Jac Caglianone was playing near the right field line and Kyle Isbel was shaded into left field while Jeff hit the grounder to right center which was wide open. Lugo then settled in and got through the fourth with seeming ease.
The Royals had multiple opportunities to get to Jeffrey Springs, but failed to cash in a couple of them. Springs walked two batters in the second and then walked one and hit Jac Caglianone in the ribs in the third. Four free base runners in two innings with none coming around to score. Finally, in the 4th, Vinnie Pasquantino’s leadoff single set the table for their first score after Springs had a very awkward attempted pitch that he was not able to throw and balked Vinnie over to second base. Salvador Perez promptly jumped on a pitch and drove it to the left center gap to score him and make the score 2-1. That ribbie makes Salvy officially second all-time in RBIs at Kauffman Stadium behind only George Brett.
Jac Caglianone was pinch hit for with John Rave in the 5th due to ankle soreness. He evidently tweaked something hustling for a single in the first and they decided to pull him after hanging in there through four. It sounds like it was precautionary and not serious. That’s a good call with at this point in the season.
Lugo ran into his second round of trouble in the 5th inning. With one out and no one on Donovan Walton singled up the middle and the other Max Muncy did as well. Bolte followed that with a third consecutive single through the left side that scored Walton on a poor throw from Tyler Tolbert allowing the other two to move up to second and third. McNeil hit the fourth single in a row on an odd golf swing to score one more. A third RBI came when Gelof grounded out, but McNeil held up long enough to get him to first instead of a double play allowing Bolte to sprint home. A’s 5 and Royals 1.
Kansas City got some offense going in the 6th to try and close the gap. Vinnie pulled a solo home run to right with one out for his 500th career hit.
Then with two down, Carter Jensen singled and ended Jefferey’s night. Sacramento brought in Scott Blewett who gave up another single to Tolbert and another opportunity for the good guys with runners in scoring position. Kyle Isbel could not keep the rally going though, so the inning ended 5-2.
Seth did not come back out for the 7th, so he ended the night at 6IP, 9H, 0BB, 3K, and all 5 runs were earned. Alex Lange was the first Royal out of the pen and took care of the 7th with a tidy one two three. Elvis Alvarado did the same for the Athletics in the bottom half. Craig Kimbrel followed suit. The bullpens were just mowing everyone down after the single Blewett gave up.
There was finally some more offense in the 8th beginning when Maikel Garcia started the inning with a single off Hayden Juenger, but it turned into three bases on an error from Lawrence Butler. Pasquantino drove a ball at 109 MPH off the pad at the top of the wall to just miss a second home run on the night and bring in Garcia to cut the lead to two. It was the fourth time Pasquatch had reached base on the night. Salvy walked to follow that and Juenger left without recording any outs on the night. Drew Rom came out of the visitor’s pen next and got Jensen to line out to center. It was deep enough to move Vinnie to third, but that did not end up mattering as the next batter, Tolbert, walked to load the bases. Kyle Isbel jumped on the first pitch and hit a ground ball through the left side moving all the runners up one base and making it 5-4. Isaac Collins had come in to pinch hit for Nick Loftin back in the 7th and now had a chance to tie the game up, which he did by driving a ball to the warning track in center allowing all three runners to tag up. Now last night’s hero, Bobby Witt, had second and third with two outs so the A’s intentionally walked him to reload them for Rave. Rave cleared the bases with a double to the right field corner and gave the Royals their first lead of the night 8-5.
Maikel Garcia kept it going with his second hit of the inning by singling to right and plating Rave. The 8th ended with Pasquantino’s first out of the night. He was the 11th Royal hitter of the inning, and they managed 7 runs in the frame.
The Royals bullpen is also adept at giving up leads, but Steven Cruz has been very good since he blew up a bit on June 21st, so he came on to try and lock the game down in the 9th. It was no longer a save situation with the Royals having a 9-5 lead. He gave up more than one run for the first time since that June game though and made the 9th a little more interesting than KC wanted. After getting Carlos Cortes and Jonah Heim to begin the inning, Walton singled to right with two down. Max Muncy then got ahold of one to center for a 2-run home run to cut the lead 9-7. It went back to the top of the lineup and Henry Bolte who grounded it to third. He is the fastest player in baseball on the basepaths this year making it less routine than maybe it should have been, but he was thrown out and the Royals sealed the win.
