Who needs starting pitchers when you have a bullpen game like this?
Faced with injuries, the Royals had to go with a “bullpen game” full of relievers today. They were more than up to the task with ten shutout innings, setting up a walk-off RBI single in the tenth by Salvador Perez to give the Royals a series win Wednesday afternoon. Royals relievers combined for ten shutout innings with ten strikeouts, one walk, and five hits allowed.
Angel Zerpa started after pitching in last night’s game, and had a 1-2-3 first inning. Jonathan Bowlan worked around some trouble in the second and gave the Royals two shutout innings. John Schreiber struck out the side, and Taylor Clarke tosssed a 1-2-3 inning.
The Braves had their best scoring opportunity in the sixth off Hunter Harvey. Nick Allen and Jurickson Profar led off with back-to-back singles, just one of two baserunners in scoring position the first nine innings for the Braves. But Harvey retired the next three hitters with no damage.
Meanwhile, Kansas City native Joey Wentz was mowing down Royals hitters. The Shawnee Mission East grad allowed just one hit over a career-high 6 2⁄3 innings with seven strikeouts and three walks. The Royals didn’t get a single runner into scoring position on their own the entire day – the only runner in scoring position was the extra-inning runner.
Steven Cruz, Lucas Erceg, and Carlos Estévez kept the Braves off the scoreboard. Sam Long came in for the tenth and gave up a leadoff single to Ozzie Albies to push the extra inning runner to third. But he wriggled out of trouble with two strikeouts and a lineout to center to keep the game scoreless.
The brought up Salvy for the Royals in the bottom of the tenth, and he delivered.
The Royals win the series and improve to 54-55, 3.5 games back of a playoff spot. They will be off tomorrow before flying to Toronto for a weekend series against the Blue Jays.
