The Royals came into tonight without Seth Lugo or Bobby Witt Jr. available to play. Instead, Stephen Kolek made the start. Maikel Garcia shifted over to shortstop, and Nick Loftin started at third base. Joe Ryan, the Royals’ arch-nemesis, was the Twins starter.
So, naturally, the Royals played one of their most complete games of the season.
Let’s start with tonight’s starter, Kolek. He still gave up a bunch of hard-hit outs with an average exit velocity of over 90 MPH. He still didn’t get many strikeouts,
four in seven innings. But he did pitch seven innings. And he only allowed six hits and one walk. Things looked like they might get scary in the top of the third inning as he allowed a double to nine-hole hitter James Outman, who now has a .487 OPS, and then a triple to Byron Buxton. But he buckled down and retired the next three batters. The Twins wouldn’t get another baserunner until the seventh inning when they got a pair of hits to lead off the inning and Kolek got three straight strikeouts to escape unscathed.
Kolek didn’t perhaps throw the most impressive game for the Royals this year, but being incredibly pitch-efficient through six innings allowed him to go deep into the game and allowed the Royals’ bullpen to rest easy. That is incredibly important given how hard they’ve had to work the past few games and how long it will be until the team’s next day off – nine days from now, on September 15. He is somewhere in the sixth- to eight-best starter range on this team when everyone is healthy and more than did his job tonight.
Luinder Avila and Sam Long each pitched scoreless innings to complete the win.
Now let’s talk about the offense. First, some caveats. Apparently, Joe Ryan was sick all week, and the TV broadcasters claimed he was coughing on the mound even as he tried to pitch tonight. Also, he was badly squeezed by home plate umpire Tyler Jones at least four times. But, as noted in the game thread, Joe Ryan was 8-0 in 10 starts against the Royals with a 1.34 ERA coming into tonight. Even those things were no guarantee KC would be able to get to him.
The Royals, as has been common lately, got things started in a hurry. Mike Yastrzemski and Maikel Garcia – batting second with Witt out – both walked. Vinnie Pasquantino then destroyed a ball off the right field wall for an RBI double. Then Salvy did Salvy things to a middle-middle fastball.
But the Royals weren’t done there!
Adam Frazier took a walk, and Nick Loftin lined a double into left to give the Royals a fifth run before the inning finally ended.
After the Twins got those two runs in the top of the third, the offense needed to get things going again. This is where they have struggled in some recent games. At first, it seemed like that might be how it went tonight.
The Twins had seen enough from Ryan and brought on old friend Thomas Hatch. You’ll recall he pitched in only one game for the Royals, and it wasn’t pretty. He immediately gave up a smash line drive from Jac Caglianone into center, but Byron Buxton ran it down. Nick Loftin recorded his second hit of the night, and Carter Jensen hit a soft grounder that left the only play at first. With two outs, the Royals finally got going again. Kyle Isbel stepped to the plate and ripped a double into the right-center gap to score Loftin. Yastrzemski walked again, and Garcia and Pasquantino hit back-to-back RBI singles to more than recover the two lost runs.
The Royals scored another in the fourth when Carter Jensen got his first hit, an RBI double, with two outs to score Caglianone who had reached on a dribbler down the third base line. They scored two more in the sixth on a Caglianone single to center – another ball off his bat in excess of 100 MPH, a Nick Loftin double, and a Carter Jensen groundout.
Yes, Nick Loftin had his first career three-hit game. Joe Ryan took his first career loss against the Royals. Everyone in the Royals’ starting lineup had at least one hit except for Yastrzemski and Frazier, but they each walked twice. Everyone reached twice except Jensen and Isbel. It was a well-rounded effort from the entire team. Michael Massey even added a single of his own in the eighth inning after the Royals started substituting players out to get them a couple extra innings’ rest in the blowout.
The Royals are now 4-4 on the homestand. Before it started, I would have said that wasn’t good enough. But, remarkably, the Mariners have played so much worse that the Royals have gained two games in the playoff race. Other teams haven’t played well enough to make up ground over the long term, as the Rangers temporarily passed the Royals in the standings and the Rays tied them briefly, but both are once again behind Kansas City as they each lost tonight while KC won. The Mariners did win, maintaining their tenuous one-game lead.
The Royals have won the season series against the Twins and have a chance to complete the sweep tomorrow. Doing that would earn them a winning homestand before a crucial and dangerous penultimate road trip to Cleveland and Philadelphia. The Royals will ask Michael Lorenzen to pitch at least as well as he did against the Angels when he allowed only two runs in six innings, but took the loss. The Twins will send Bailey Ober to the mound. Ober has a 5.06 ERA since returning from the injured list at the beginning of August, but one of those games saw him allow only a single run in six innings against the Royals, the last time these two teams met. Funnily enough, he took the loss in that one. Those were the fewest runs he’d allowed in a start since… the last time he faced the Royals on May 25.
The Royals exorcised some Joe Ryan demons tonight; maybe they can get back into Ober’s head tomorrow. Either way, the game will start at 1:10 Central and, as all games are for Kansas City from now until the end of the year, will be hugely important for KC.
