Royals have a no-good, very-bad game, lose 15-4
This was not a good night for Royals pitchers
Well, the Royals couldn’t go the entire season without being blown out. It still only counts as one loss and they still have a chance to win the series tomorrow afternoon. Sort of. But we’ll get to that.
Michael Wacha had been quietly pitching very poorly before tonight. He had allowed 13 runs over 22 innings in his previous four starts. After tonight make that 20 runs in 25.2 innings. He’s walked eight while striking out 22 over that span and only allowed three home runs, so his FIP is still relatively low. In fact, it improved tonight. But he’s given up 40 hits and when you’re giving up that many hits it will catch up to you eventually, even if everything else is going well.
The Royals were down 7-0 when they came to bat in the fifth inning and started to mount a comeback. With one out in the inning, Rangers starter Dane Dunning had faced the minimum thanks to only allowing a single hit to Maikel Garcia before getting a double play from Vinnie Pasquantino to end the fourth. Michael Massey singled, Nelson Velázquez doubled, and both scored on a Hunter Renfroe single.
In the sixth, Bobby Witt Jr. led off with a walk, stole a base, and scored on Vinnie Pasquantino’s single to draw things to 7-3 and you could begin to wonder if the Royals were going to have something.
After another Massey single and a wild pitch, the Royals had runners at second and third, still with only one out, but Velázquez flew out and Garrett Hampson, pinch-hitting for the Antarctically cold MJ Melendez, also struck out to end the threat.
Still, you could wonder if the Royals could just keep chipping away at it. Then Colin Selby came on to pitch. He had a scoreless outing last night but was not so lucky last night. The killing blow was a wild pitch with the bases loaded which Salvy then fired into left field to allow two runners to score and the last one to advance to third. The Royals were now down 10-3.
They got one more run in the eighth thanks to Massey’s one-out double and a Garrett Hampson RBI single, but then Matt Sauer was called on to pitch the ninth and gave up five more runs to bring us to our final tally. The Royals went quietly in the ninth.
If you’re looking for silver linings, Tyler Duffey and Will Smith each registered scoreless appearances. Velázquez hit that double into the right-center gap, showing the willingness to go the other way that fueled his hot start to the season, Garcia had two more hits, Witt had a pair of walks, and Massey had the three hits described above.
Tonight was a particularly bad night for Wacha to completely fall apart as the team hasn’t, as of this writing, announced who will be starting tomorrow. It would have been nice to have a mostly fresh bullpen to either pull off the bullpen game or back up someone who was promoted. I know some people theorized Sauer could get the start, but the five-run ninth seems to have put the kibosh on that idea. Daniel Lynch IV hasn’t pitched since May 1 when he only went four innings, so he might be available. Anthony Veneziano pitched three innings on May 2. But neither of them have the world on fire in AAA and neither would likely be able to pitch very deep into the game.
The Royals will just have to hope that the Rangers got all their scoring out of their system, tonight. Texas will send Jon Gray to the mound. As noted, the Royals have not yet announced a starter, but it seems clear it will have to be someone from the minors. First pitch will be at 1:10 CT.