Despite a rain delay of over an hour, the game started off so well for the Royals. Bobby Witt Jr. took a one-out walk, Vinnie Pasquantino hit an RBI double, then Jac Caglianone drove him in with his own double. The Royals wouldn’t score again until a weak groundout in the ninth brought home Caglianone again in a 5-3 loss.
As you might imagine, Michael Wacha didn’t have one of his stronger starts of the season. But what you also need to realize is that this game featured two Royals errors and three wild pitches. The Royals played really crappy defense. On the other side, Byron Buxton was everywhere in centerfield until he crashed into the wall to rob Carter Jensen of extra bases. Austin Martin in right field gunned down two runners at home with assists from catcher Alex Jackson making excellent tags.
Of the five runs, four were earned, but the Royals’ lack of speed in the corners led to at least three different hits, and two of the wild pitches took a runner from second all the way home. Again, let’s not pretend it was only the defense. Wacha threw fewer than 10 pitches in a 1-2-3 fifth but gave up a home run and then back-t0-back double to surrender the lead before the poor defense helped put the game out of reach.
Austin Martin will be the story from the Twins’ side. In the top of the fourth, Caglianone took a one-out walk, advanced to second on an Isaac Collins single, and then Michael Massey crushed one on the ground into right. I was yelling at my TV, begging them not to send Caglianone home, but home he went on a no-signal from third-base coach Vance Wilson. Martin had everything lined up for him, and, despite Caglianone making it closer than I had dreamed possible, he was clearly out. That is at least the second time this season a runner has been thrown at home when he probably shouldn’t have gone but didn’t get a signal from his third base coach. That certainly won’t quiet the calls for coaches’ heads to roll from the Royals faithful.
Isaac Collins led off the seventh with a walk of his own, then advanced to second when Zebby Matthews disengaged from the mound for a third time without recording a pickoff. This time, the hard-hit ball into right was off the bat of Kyle Isbel, and Martin had to move laterally a bit to field it. Vance Wilson actually signalled to Collins he should head home, and that seemed more reasonable to me, but he was thrown out by even more than Cags.
Those of us who recall the 2014-2015 Royals remember that running on guys and hoping they make a mistake can be a terrific gamble, but it absolutely didn’t pay off tonight, despite how Mickey Mouse the Twins’ defense looked in the first series these two teams played. You can blame the runners – both of whom chose to slide feet-first instead of using a head-first slide to give them an opportunity to swim around the tag. You could absolutely blame the coaches, too, and I wouldn’t argue with you either way. But there’s also an element of the other team being good at their jobs that’s involved here, too.
There were certainly some bright spots in this one. Steven Cruz pitched 1.1 scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts. Beck Way made his big league debut and struck out a pair of his own, including the first batter he faced, in a scoreless eighth inning. The Royals can use any help they can get from their bullpen.
Michael Massey continued his hot hitting with a pair of hard singles on the night. Vinnie only went 1-for-3, but he tattooed a lineout in the sixth inning. Jac went 2-for-3 with a walk, and his only out was a similarly smoked lineout in the sixth.
At this point, moral victories mean even less than they did earlier this year when you hoped they’d might lead to better play before things got out of hand. Things are out of hand. The season is lost until and unless the Royals have the kind of ridiculous winning stretch that simply doesn’t feel possible with this club, which was built to be solidly above-average with a high floor. The floor fell out, and they don’t have the top-end potential to make up for it. But I’ll take all the bright spots I can get that tell me that they might be able to find some guys to help them do better next year.
Anyway, tomorrow’s game is an afternoon match; it will start at 1:10 Central. Luinder Avila (4.44 ERA) will face off against Joe Ryan (3.20 ERA). We’ll just have to hope KC can hammer Ryan for the third straight time.
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