Cole Ragans pulled early as Royals drop series opener to Cardinals 10-3

There was some stuff in this game that you don’t see very often, but the real crux of this game came down to only two things, both in the sixth inning.

Masyn Winn hit a comebacker to lead off the inning, and Cole Ragans had an awkward hop on his plant leg as he looked to avoid the ball. He came down a little gingerly and paced around the mound. Whatever it was, the Royals coaching staff saw enough to remove him from the game immediately. Officially, he left the game with left groin tightness. We’ll see if it leads to an IL stint.

Secondly, John Schreiber came in to replace Ragans. After allowing a single and inducing a popup, Schreiber got another ground ball. At this point, the game was still close with the Cardinals ahead 3-2. Jonathan India misplayed the hop, which was a pretty high hop but still quite, uh, fieldable. Because of the misplay, he could not get the ball in time to Bobby Witt Jr for the forceout at second base. It took a Cardinals challenge to get the call correct there, but nevertheless the bases were loaded for Iván Herrera.

Herrera laced a deep line drive to center field for a double and scored all three runners. Now, to me, it looked like Kyle Isbel was shaded pretty far to right field for a right-handed hitter. Had Isbel been aligned straight-up, it’s possible he could have gotten to it, but I’m not sure that’s likely. It was hit hard and deep.

It doesn’t matter anyway. The hit fell for a double and blew the game open 6-2, a deficit from which the offensively-challenged Royals would not come back.

Now, about those things you don’t quite see every game.

In the fifth inning, there was a little controversy or confusion, at least to me. After a triple by Kyle Isbel, Cardinals starter Andre Pallante got hit with a balk call. As a former right-handed pitcher, I’m really quite unclear what the balk call was. Pallante has a little shimmy-shimmy to his windup motion, and he chose to go with the windup with Isbel on third and two outs. But to my eyes he did not commit an infraction against any of the balk rules.

Whatever, though I guess. Isbel scored to make it 3-2 (the other run up to that point being a Vinnie Pasquantino homer into the fountains). At the time, it was important! It ended up being extremely unimportant.

In the seventh inning, Nolan Arenado nearly made it an 8-2 game. With Winn on second base, Arenado laced what looked to be a double. However, on replay Arenado failed to touch first base. The Royals dugout noticed it right away, so Angel Zerpa was able to get the post-hit out to prevent Winn from scoring.

The Cardinals got that eighth run anyway the next inning. At the time, it was not very important! And it ended up staying that way. They added a couple insurance runs in the ninth, but again it did not matter. The Royals scored one more run, a Witt Jr triple followed by a Salvador Perez single, but that got the Royals up to only three runs.

It was an offensive explosion from the Cardinals. Yes, Ragans went out early, but he was not exactly cruising. Yes, there were a few ball/strike calls that went against the Royals at the plate.

But the Cardinals sprayed 13 hits for 10 runs. Herrera and Willson Contreras terrorized the Royals. Andre Pallante, the Cardinals starter, was hammering the strike zone and made it through seven innings. With the Royals’ offensive limitations continuing to hamstring the team, the pitching has to be elite every game.

It just wasn’t tonight. Hoping for Cole Ragans’ groin to heal up fast, but it may be time for an IL stint if it’s the same thing that was hampering him earlier in the season.

The 25-21 Royals and 25-20 Cardinals will play again tomorrow at 6:10pm US Central.