Recap Coda: That time the Royals scored seven runs in the ninth inning to walk off the White Sox
What a game
Welcome to Recap Coda, the series where we reminisce about past Royals games and look at what we wrote about them here at Royals Review. In today’s edition, we’ll take a look at one of the craziest ninth innings in Royals history.
May 28, 2016 - Chicago White Sox at Kansas City Royals
- Final Score: Royals 8, Nationals 7
- Time of Game: 3 hours 22 minutes
- Attendance: 31,598
- Royals Review Recap Headline: Royals score seven in ninth to win 8-7 over White Sox by J.K. Ward
- Box score, courtesy of Baseball-Reference:
Recap Coda
A little more than a year and a half prior to this game, the Royals kicked off a hell of a run of amazing comebacks. In the 2014 Wild Card Game, the Athletics had a 96% chance of winning in the eighth inning. There were the extra innings playoff games against the Orioles and Angels when both opponents boasted a 70% or greater chance of winning in the 10th. And, of course, there was Game 4 of the 2015 ALDS where the Astros had a 98% chance of winning in the eighth inning and Game 1 of the World Series where the Mets had an 89% chance of winning in the ninth inning. The Royals won all those games.
But this low-stakes, relatively meaningless early season game against a floundering White Sox club was probably the most impressive comeback of them all. As you can see in the below win probability chart, the White Sox first eclipsed the 90% win probability mark in the fourth inning via an Avisail Garcia home run off the late Yordano Ventura. Their win expectancy reached 97% an inning later and 99% as early as the seventh inning.
The Royals, the reigning World Series champs, won by scoring seven runs in the ninth inning to walk off the Sox. As J.K. Ward mentioned multiple times in the Royals Review recap, it was “bonkers.”
The game started rather inauspiciously. Ward noted that Ventura looked off compared to the previous two years, laboring through the first few innings.
Ventura rolled through the first inning, but the White Sox strung together three singles to open the scoring in the second. Tyler Saladino then plated three with a home run into left, putting Chicago up 4-0 after two.
Things didn’t get better from there. Ventura yielded a two-run home run in the fourth to Avisail Garcia, putting the game presumably out of reach. An error by Omar Infante allowed another run to cross in the fifth.
Ventura’s final line was seven innings, nine hits, seven runs, six earned, no walks, and four strikeouts. He threw just 107 pitches on the afternoon, despite the hits.
But really, that is the thinnest of silver linings. Ventura, outside of a pair of starts, has been absolutely horrendous this year. From an observational standpoint, the word ‘tinkering’ comes to mind. Tinkering with his delivery. Tinkering with his velocity. Tinkering with pitch types, pitch sequencing, etc. Tinker, tinker, tinker. Nothing is working, which kind of makes you think that the tinkering, much like a Chrome extension which is presumably supposed to be helping, is in fact the problem.
There are a lot of “what ifs” to Ventura’s life, and his tragic death at the age of 25 is clearly the biggest one. What if he had been able to continue pitching? If he were alive today, he would be 33 years and 7 months old—one month older than Michael Wacha.
I also do wonder what kind of pitcher Ventura would have been if he had gotten the chance to work with modern pitching coaching and techniques. Ventura was talented enough to succeed in spite of Kansas City’s, shall we say, lagging pitching development at the time. What kind of monster might he have been with all that easy velocity and swagger?
As it turns out, this game would be the low point in his season, as his FIP would continually go down over his next 22 starts. But in this game, the White Sox jumped out to an early lead, one in which they would not give up...
...at least until the ninth. Ward describes how it went down:
Cheslor Cuthbert singled and Brett Eibner doubled. Following an Omar Infante walk to load the bases, Alcides Escobar then worked a full count and drew a walk, scoring Cuthbert. Whit the Hit Merrifield then hit a sharp ground ball off the glove of Robertson, which rolled into right field, allowing two more runs to score.
Lorenzo Cain then grounded into a fielder’s choice, making the score 7-5 with Eric Hosmer standing in as the tying run. Crime Horse then doubled into deep right center, scoring Cain from first base. At that point, having seen his closer throw thirty pitches in a non-save situation, having yielded five runs with a runner on, Robin Ventura decided that maybe a new bullpen arm was needed.
Lo and behold, the game came down to Drew Butera, who came in for Perez in the ninth. Butera doubled into deep left field, tying the game 7-7. Fitting that it sailed over the head of Melky Cabrera, a sight very familiar to Royals fans on account of Cabrera’s time with the club.
Paulo Orlando, he of the 336 career plate appearances, was then intentionally walked. Butera moved to third on a wild pitch during the intentional walk, which is a keen illustration of how bananas this game–and this inning–was. Jarrod Dyson pinch hit for Cuthbert, who appeared to be favoring his leg when he scored the first run of the inning. On a 2-1 count, several pitches after Orlando had moved up to second on defensive indifference, Ventura then decided to put Dyson on intentionally, loading the bases and putting the game on Brett Eibner’s broad, rippling shoulders.
Eibner battled, fouling off several pitches and working a full count on Kahnle. On the ninth pitch of the at bat, Eibner smashed a low line drive to first base, deflecting off of Jose Abreu to score the winning run.
I don’t know about you all, but I’m most nostalgic about past seasons when it comes to players who were only around for a little bit. Yes, Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain have the most memories attached to them, but it’s not every day you read the names Paulo Orlando or Cheslor Cuthbert or the hero of the game, Brett Eibner.
Eibner in particular is a fascinating one. If the Royals were bad like they were until 2013 and from 2018 through 2023, he likely would have gotten some playing time after a strong age-26 season in Triple-A where he hit .303/.364/.514 and a 132 wRC+. A former pitcher, Eibner’s glorious locks and athletic tools made him a bit of a fan favorite around these parts.
But Eibner was on a short leash in 2016. He couldn’t break through until late May, and this game was his second career game. For me, that it was Brett Eibner that knocked in the go-ahead hit to cap off the wild ninth inning makes it more memorable for me. Eibner would only play 25 more games with Kansas City before being traded to Oakland for Billy Burns for some reason, and Eibner would only play in 93 games his entire career. He successfully returned to the big leagues as a pitcher in 2020, becoming another one of the few humans who have hit an MLB home run and struck out an MLB hitter. However, this game was probably the highlight of his career, if not one of the highlights of his career.
Similarly, this game partially represents the highpoint of the Royals’ season. Kansas City would use this as a catalyst to pull off a six-game winning streak, peaking at 30-22 on June 1. They’d lose their next 8 games and go 51-59 over the remainder of the season to finish at an even .500 on the year.
For this specific game, though? It was beautiful, just like Eibner’s flowing hair.