Historic 11-hit, nine-run first inning sweeps the Royals past Houston in a 13-3 win

Kansas City sweeps the bad guys and wins every game of the home stand

I watched a 2003 Royals team led by Darrell May and Angel Berroa open its season with nine straight wins. I watched a 2013 team that had never won 15 of 20 games in the Dayton Moore era win 15 of 17. I watched a 29-32 Royals team that was dead to rights win 10 straight games and eventually win the pennant. I watched the 2015 Royals come out of the gates breathing fire and winning its first seven games.

Despite all that, I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed a Royals team more unconscious than the team we watched in the 1st inning today.

Kansas City opened the game with 12 of its first 14 batters reaching base, scoring nine first-inning runs and all but ending the game before it started in a 13-3 win over Houston. Bobby Witt Jr stood out with a 4 for 5 performance that included two homers and five RBI in a team effort ending with 16 hits. The winning streak is up to seven games, sweeping the White Sox and Astros to secure a perfect 7-0 homestand.

After Royals starter Brady Singer worked around a leadoff double and two-out walk, Kansas City jumped all over a struggling Hunter Brown, who gave up five runs in just 3.0 innings last time out. He followed up that five-run performance by giving up nine runs in the 1st inning today.

Kansas City started with three consecutive singles, the third being a two-RBI single from Vinnie Pasquantino to put the Royals up 2-0. MJ Melendez doubled to put runners on 2nd and 3rd for Nelson Velazquez, who singled Pasquantino home. Nick Loftin followed with another two-RBI single, putting Kansas City up 5-0.

Maikel Garcia singled in two more before Bobby Witt chased him home with his 3rd homer of the season to put the Royals up 9-0.

Kansas City followed that up with back-to-back singles from Pasquantino and Salvador Perez before a Melendez walk chased Brown with the bases loaded. Seth Martinez relieved the 25-year-old former 5th-round pick to face Velazquez with the bases loaded, getting a strikeout to end the inning mercifully.

After the dust settled, the Royals had scored nine runs on 11 hits and a walk. The 11 hits tied the franchise record for hits in an inning. The frame lasted 25 minutes and in all the craziness, the easily forgotten challenge of scoring nine runs in an inning is Singer having to go back out on the mound with nearly half an hour between pitches.

Predictably, he struggled out of the gate with a leadoff walk and a seeing-eye single. The Royals have long been known for giving little run support to its pitchers, a meme that peaked with Zack Greinke’s first tenure in Kansas City. Well, Singer is pacing to be the opposite.

In two of his three starts, he went to the mound with at least a nine-run lead by the 3rd inning. This time around, he settled back in. Singer worked around a double, single, and a walk by getting Jose Altuve to ground into an inning-ending fielder’s choice.

Singer didn’t have his best stuff and labored a bit with a big lead. The Astros got on the board with a fountain shot from Yainer Diaz in the 4th and Singer needed 87 pitches to get through five innings. Despite that, he gave up just the single run, giving up five hits and two walks before getting replaced by Nick Anderson in the 6th.

No pitcher says no to a nine-run 1st inning from their offense, but the 30-minute break likely didn’t help his form. He worked around some threats and similar to Ragans’ start, it wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.

Anderson, on the other hand, struggled a bit in his inning of work. A walk, double, and an RBI single from Mauricio Dubon made it a 9-2 game for the Astros and ended a 20.0-inning scoreless streak for the Royals’ bullpen. Anderson then walked Altuve to load the bases before walking Yordan Alvarez on four pitches to make it a 9-3 game.

With Kyle Tucker due up, Matt Quatraro turned to lefty Angel Zerpa to prevent a blowout from becoming a competitive game. Tucker hit it hard, but well within the range of Velazquez for what ordinarily would be a routine flyout had fans not been thinking about Velazquez straight up dropping a fly ball the inning before. Even the broadcast held its breath, but Velazquez squeezed it to end the inning and preserve a six-run lead.

As the Astros began to chip away at the lead, even as the lead stayed in blowout territory, the story shifted towards the offense all but stopping after the nine-run first inning. After surrendering 11 hits in the first inning, Astros pitchers retired the next 12 Kansas City batters, a streak broken up by Kyle Isbel’s two-out 5th-inning infield single.

But Bobby Witt Jr will do Bobby Witt Jr things. He started with this ridiculous play, standing tall in the pocket and delivering a strike-through contact.

He led off the 6th with a single, stole second, and moved to third on an error. He scored on a Pasquantino double to make it a 10-3 game. The entire Royals’ offense is hot, but nobody is hotter in international sports than Vinnie.

He entered last night’s contest slashing .108/.214/.108 for an OPS of .322 and was the only Kansas City regular without an RBI or an extra-base hit. After the double, his OPS sat at .655 and his eight RBI were tied with Melendez for the 3rd most on the team.

Just as Vinnie was declared the hottest athlete in professional sports by well renowned bloggers, Bob took a stab at that crown.

Nick Loftin walked to start the 7th and moved to 3rd on an Isbel single. Bob then sent a 2-0 fastball into QuikTrip Fountain Deck for his 2nd opposite-field homer of the day, putting Kansas City up 13-3.

Junior finished the day with four hits, two homers, a stolen base, five RBI, four runs, and one Patrick Mahomes-esque throw. It was a historic day for both Bob and the Royals.

The blowout was such that we got some position player action, as Houston turned to Grae Kessinger to pitch the 8th inning. Kansas City turned to rookie Matt Sauer and Jordan Lyles to get through the final three innings. If you haven’t yet, look at today’s box score. It makes for fun reading.

The Royals improve to 9-4 while the Astros fall to 4-10. Cleveland has an off day, which means Kansas City ends its day 0.5 games back of the Guardians in the AL Central. However, it will end the day with a +39 run differential, pushing past the Guardians’ +35 mark. Unless something dramatic happens, they will end the night with the top run differential in baseball.

So, as noted in today’s game preview, the question must be asked.

Up Next: Royals at Mets, Friday, April 12, 6:10 PM CDT, Citi Field. TBD v. Luis Severino (0-1, 3.60 ERA)