At the beginning, it seemed like the Royals were going to hit-parade their way to a win over the first place Tigers. In the early innings, they were getting single after single after single. So much loud contact.
After Yaz led off the game with a single, Bobby plastered a ball at 113.6mph. It was just straight to the shortstop and hit so hard that they doubled up one of the fastest dudes in MLB. So it goes.
But the single parade was still how they initially scored in the third inning. Isbel, Yaz, and Bobby led off with three straight singles to score the game’s first run. BWJ had the RBI – he once again just absolutely crushed the ball, this time as a line drive into center field, 107.3mph off the bat. After a Vinnie popout with men on second and third, Maikel Garcia hit a chopper straight to the first baseman. Yaz was thrown out at home by…a lot. Welp. Garcia reached and Bobby moved to third. Then Salvador Perez hit a grounder past the third baseman for a double. With two outs, Garcia was running on contact, so both runners scored to make it 3-0.
Up until the bottom of the third, Ryan Bergert was cruising. He had three strikeouts in the first two innings and hadn’t given up a hit yet. He was going for his fourth strikeout against Zach McKinstry on a 2-2 count, and he threw a 95mph pretty much right where Perez set the target. Middle, a little high. Just not high enough. McKinstry crushed it for a solo shot to make it 3-1.
But Bergert rebounded and even managed to work around a two-out triple in the fifth inning. He got two outs in the sixth and was pulled for Angel Zerpa with one runner on base. He got to a 1-2 count and was looking to hit the low/outside corner for a strikeout against Riley Greene and just missed his target. Greene tattooed it for a two-run homer to tie the game.
Zerpa gave up two more singles before getting pulled. He did not record an out.
Matt Quatraro reached into his bag in the seventh. Pinch-hitting for both Isbel and Yaz, Nick Loftin and Randal Grichuk both managed to draw a walk. Unfortunately, Bobby hit into *another* double play that pretty much ended the threat.
That’s when the wheels completely fell off. In the bottom of the seventh, Quatraro tabbed Bailey Falter, who got a comebacker from McKinstry. The ball went off his bicep on his pitching arm. The pitches right after were both 90mph fastballs, but later on it didn’t seem like his velocity was affected. It’s hard to say…the results after he got hit were abysmal.
He gave up an opposite-field single to Javier Báez next. McKinstry was motoring trying to go first-to-third, and Grichuk’s throw actually just hit him as he slide into third base. The ball caromed toward the dugout and McKinstry scored easily for the Tigers to take the lead. Rotten bounce, rotten luck.
The hits just kept coming after that…the hit parade completely shifted from the Royals to the Tigers. Maybe Falter’s arm was affected, maybe not, I don’t know. A single scored a run. A double scored a run. Falter finally got a couple outs, but then he walked a guy and gave up another single. By the end of this disaster inning, it was 7-3 Tigers. Falter finished the game without incident, but the game was mostly out of reach anyway.
Vinnie made it interesting in the ninth inning as he homered in his fifth-straight game, but with two outs the Royals were out of chances as Maikel Garcia struck out to end the game.
Ryan Bergert ended up going 5.2 innings and gave up only three hits, one of which was the aforementioned homer, and two runs. He had five strikeouts against one walk. He seems like a solid get so far, while Bailey Falter has been…rough.
The Royals fall to 66-63. Cleveland lost to Texas, so that’s good. Boston beat NYY. At press time, Seattle was tied 1-1 with the nomadic Athletics.
The Royals and Tigers play again on Saturday at 5:10pm US Central.
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