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Kansas City Royals traded punches with the Seattle Mariners before an eighth inning rally put them ahead for good in a 7-4 win tonight at Kauffman Stadium. With the Royals out of the playoff race, in lieu of a beat-by-beat recap, let’s hit the highlights:
- In his first outing in three months, Cole Ragans came out with a purpose. His first five pitches were four-seam fastballs up in the zone. Each one resulted in a swing and miss. He threw the pitch ten times in the inning, sitting 97 and garnering nine swinging strikes, a foul ball, and a ball. The only other pitch he threw in the inning was a slider that struck out Cal Raleigh on a check swing. It had to be the most dominant inning from a Royals pitcher all season.
- That form did not last forever. Ragans was much more wild to start the second, beginning the inning with a nine-pitch walk to Jorge Polanco. He then threw four straight four-seamers to Eugenio Suárez, with each coming at just 94. The fourth caught way too much of the plate and Suárez launched a bomb over the center field fence. Ragans would walk Mitch Garver later in the inning but otherwise would not allow any more baserunners until departing with two outs in the fourth. He was unable to maintain the velo he showed in the first inning and struggled with locating his secondaries, but managed to gut it out aside from the homer. Ragans was pulled having thrown 62 pitches.
- In the bottom of the first inning, Bryce Miller continued to pitch as he has been lately, which is to say not too well. He got the first two outs but then gave up a line drive single to Vinnie Pasquantino. Maikel García followed with a ball that looked like a 6-3, but J.P. Crawford didn’t play it well and García reached without a throw. That brought up Salvador Perez, who would do something we have seen many times before — looked like a fool chasing a breaker in the dirt before smashing an outside fastball out to dead center for a long homer.
- Kyle Isbel grounded out to end the second inning and walked gingerly off the field afterwards. He went straight for the trainer in the dugout. Tyler Tolbert took over in center field to start the third inning. It was later confirmed to be a hamstring injury for Isbel.
- The Royals had multiple other opportunities to score off Miller but couldn’t cash in. A Mike Yastrzemski double and Bobby Witt Jr. single gave them runners on the corners with nobody out in the third. They would later load the bases in the inning but were unable to bring home a run. In the next inning, Carter Jensen walked and Tyler Tolbert singled with one out. They would also be stranded. In the fifth, Adam Frazier singled with Pasquantino on second base, but the latter was thrown out at the plate.
- The Royals lost the lead in the late innings. With Angel Zerpa pitching for Kansas City, Suárez doubled to lead off the seventh. He would come around to score the tying run on a sac fly. Lucas Erceg lost the lead when he threw a cement mixer slider to Crawford on his second pitch of the evening. Crawford crushed it into the right field bullpen to give Seattle a 4-3 lead. Erceg would subsequently allow a couple singles but picked Julio Rodríguez off first base to end the inning.
- Kansas City took the lead for good in the eighth with a novel rally. Perez walked to lead off the inning before Frazier slapped one down the left field line that resulted in about as short a home run as you will ever see at Kauffman Stadium. That gave the Royals a 5-4 lead. They’d plate a few insurance runs in a rally that included a 105.9 mph double into the left-center gap by Jac Caglianone and a 108.1 mph line drive single by Carter Jensen.
- Carlos Estévez entered in the ninth with a 7-4 lead in tow, looking for his 40th save of the season. He immediately got in trouble when hard groundballs from Suárez and Naylor got through the infield, putting runners on the corners with nobody out. The Royals happily traded a run for an out with a slick 4-6-3 double play before Estévez retired Crawford to lock down a 7-5 Royals win.
The victory improves Kansas City to 76-76. Grass Creek is on the line tomorrow as the Royals and Mariners will do battle in the rubber match of both this series and the season series.
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