Tonight’s game was a pitchers’ duel through the first six innings. The 17th batter of the evening, Michael Massey, was the first one who managed to reach base in the bottom of the 3rd by hitting liner down the first base line. It looked like the Royals would have the first run of the day when he was followed by a Maikel Garcia single to right. Unfortunately, Aaron Judge gunned down Massey at the plate.
Gerrit Cole looked in control from the outset. His 4-seam fastball and slider were both moving a little
faster and spinning more than in his first start against Tampa Bay last week. The Royals, who are 19th in the majors as a team in strike out rate, were punched out 10 times by Gerrit in just innings 6 2/3 innings. He only had two counts where the hitter had 3 balls and 59 of his 79 pitches were for strikes. It is always hard to know how much to blame the offense and how much to credit the pitcher in a game like this. Cole looked like his dominant old self today.
Noah Cameron was very good too, just not anywhere near as dominant as Cole. His final line of 5IP, 4H, 1BB, 2ER, 4K is not amazing, but it was against one of the best lineups in the game and part of the two runs was a weird bounce off of the left field wall to get Ben Rice an RBI triple and then in on a sac fly. Both of those came in the top of the 4th. The only other trouble he got into was in the 6th when Paul Goldschmidt singled to lead off the inning and then Rice walked. John Schreiber was called on to bail him out and bail him out he did. Aaron Judge grounded into a double play and was promptly followed by a Cody Bellinger flyout to keep the 2-0 score through six.
In the 7th, Nick Mears took over and made some trouble for himself too, though in part it was BABIP luck with Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon both singling on poor contact. Sandwiched between those two was a walk to Anthony Volpe, so the bases were loaded. Nick almost escaped, getting a lineout from Jose Caballero and then a strikeout of Austin Wells, but he could not find the third out. Goldschmidt walked in the Yankees third run, which resulted in Mears being pulled. Alex Lange then allowed two more runs on a ground ball to the left of Vinnie Pasquantino and the Royals had 9 outs left with a 5 run deficit to make up. It only got worse from there.
Mason Black was the next out of the pen for Kansas City. He also got touched up. McMahon hit a two-run line drive into the visitor’s bullpen with one on to move the score to 7-0. So, just like last year, the Royals faced the Yankees twice and were swept in both series. It will be at least 2027 before the Royals pick up a win against the Yanks who they last dispatched on October 7th, 2024. Next up for the Royals is a 10-game road trip where they will face Texas, Cincinnati, and Minnesota. They have struggled on the road this year, though they just struggled through a homestand too, so it cannot be much worse.
