The Royals hit eight doubles in last night’s game to dominate the Cardinals; they added five more tonight en route to another victory. This time, they won 6-5 over their cross-state rivals.
Seth Lugo made his return from the 7-day concussion IL tonight, and it didn’t start great. He walked Iván Herrera with one out, then gave up a double to Alec Burleson. He was fortunate that two well-struck flyballs resulted in only a sacrifice fly, but he threw a lot of balls in the inning.
He had a 1-2-3 second,
but gave up another run in the third thanks to a leadoff walk, a passed ball, and a Herrera single. Fortunately, Burleson hit a grounder to Jac Caglianone, who calmly stepped on first and threw a strike down to second to initiate the rundown that resulted in an inning-ending double play. Lugo ended the night with a quality start, allowing only the two runs in six innings. Of concern would be that he gave up three walks without earning a single strikeout. He did field a comebacker from JJ Wetherholt and calmly made the routine throw to first, so there at least doesn’t appear the Gold Glover will field his position scared.
The Royals stranded John Rave’s leadoff double in the third inning. They got another leadoff double in the fourth from tonight’s two-hole hitter, Lane Thomas. Caglianone was up and just trying to make sure he moved the runner over, but squeaked a single through the second base spot as the Cardinals had him shifted to pull. He advanced to second on a groundout by Salvador Perez. Then Michael Massey, also just doing his best to make sure he put his bat on the ball, flipped a single into center to tie the game. Nick Loftin struck out, but John Rave took a tough walk to put runners at first and second with two outs for Isaac Collins. Collins has been a disappointment for many Royals fans this year, but he didn’t disappoint this time with an opposite-field double to bring both runners home.
The Royals tacked one on in the fifth when Jac decided to show his oppo-taco from last night was no fluke.
They scored their final run in the sixth. Loftin walked to lead off the inning, Rave popped up a bunt, and Collins ripped a double into the right-center gap. With runners at second and third and Tolbert at the plate, the Royals put the squeeze play on. He put a couple of good bunts down, but both went foul. So he had to swing away and ended up with a sac fly to deep center instead.
John “Gas Can” Schreiber pitched a clean seventh and Daniel “Danny Drips” Lynch IV pitched a clean eighth with a little help from his defense.
Some of you might not remember, but ESPN used to do a fan vote for the best web gem. They’d post two web gems to social media and let fans vote which was the best. Whichever one won would be one of the options the next day. This play from 2015 won the vote so many times that ESPN eventually quietly just picked two brand new gems for fans to vote on.
So, yeah, the Royals were invoking some good memories tonight.
Unfortunately, not everything that happened late in the game was positive. Matt Strahm-boli was given the ninth in a non-save situation. He ended up allowing three runs, with an honorable mention to Alex Lange-xiety. He allowed the tying run to reach the plate before Matt Quatraro was forced to summon Alex Lange to save the game. That also means Strahm has given up 10 runs in his last 6.2 innings. It’s amazing the Royals can win any games with both he and Lucas Erceg still looking completely unpitchable. Tyler Tolbert made another slick defensive play to finish the game.
A couple more highlights:
- John Rave finished the night 1-for-2 with a double and two walks; his season OPS is now 2.167.
- For the second straight night, every Royal in the starting lineup had a positive offensive contribution. Tyler Tolbert is the only one who didn’t reach, but he had the sacrifice fly.
- This is the first time all year the Royals have won three straight games by 4+ runs.
- The Royals’ infield featured exactly ZERO of their opening day starters. You’d have been right to question how good the defense might look, but it was terrific and needed to be because Royals’ pitchers only managed a single strikeout all night.
The Royals have now guaranteed a season series tie with the Cardinals. They’ll have a chance to go for the sweep and season series victory on Sunday afternoon. They won’t play tomorrow because of the World Cup game happening across the parking lot.
The Royals are nowhere near the playoff hunt, still. They’d need to win something like 20 in a row to get back in it, but you can’t win 20 in a row without first winning 3 in a row. Maybe they can take the next step on Sunday when Stephen Kolek (2.68 ERA, 12.1% K-BB%) faces off against the Cardinals’ Dustin May (3.75 ERA, 16.4% K-BB%) at 1:10 Kauffman time.
