Two weeks ago, the Royals had just lost their seventh straight game, it dropped them to 7-15 on the season. Now they just got done sweeping the Mariners in the Pacific Northwest with a 4-1 victory. The Royals wrapped up a 4-2 trip out west and are now winners in 7 of their last 9 contests. They are 15-19 on the season, and 2.5 games out of first place. They are 3-0 in the month of May.
After doing next to nothing through three innings, the Royals found themselves down 1-0. Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie
Pasquantino hit back-to-back singles to start the 4th. Salvy got hit by a pitch, and the bases were loaded for Carter Jensen with nobody down. Jensen worked back from a 1-2 count to earn an RBI walk to tie it up. Jac Caglianone was up next, and he hit into a forceout, making it 2-1.
Isaac Collins next, skied a ball into medium deep right center, Julio Rodríguez got underneath it and threw a three hopper to the plate, Salvy was initially called out, but empathically told the dugout to challenge, they did and Salvy was safe on a fantastic slide to make it 3-1.
Collins doubled off the center field wall to score Cags with two outs in the 6th, to make it 4-1 as well. For a guy that didn’t have a hit on the road on as of Tuesday, Collins swung the bat very well on the trip, even a good amount of his outs were hit hard.
Kris Bubic had a tough third inning but was dominant on the afternoon. He went 7 innings, allowing 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, while striking out 7.
John Schreiber started the 8th inning, he walked one but got a pair of groundouts as well. Daniel Lynch IV came in to face Josh Naylor with two outs, with a runner on first. He promptly struck him out on four pitches. Lynch stayed in for the 9th, striking out two more and getting a grounder to Vinnie to complete the sweep. It’s Lynch’s first save of the season, Bubic’s third win.
The Royals have a huge next 10 games, they open a seven game homestand against Cleveland tomorrow night, who they are 2.5 games back of at the top of the division, for four games. The Tigers are in town next weekend, and then it’s off to the southside to face the streaking White Sox for three games. A chance to gain ground and get some divisional wins awaits the Royals. The stretch starts tomorrow night at 6:40 p.m. CT, with Michael Wacha getting the start. The game can be streamed on Royals.TV.
