The Kansas City Royals fought back but it was too little, too late as the Cincinnati Reds get the win 7-4. The Reds had a veritable army on the basepaths, with 17 baserunners. Kansas City outscored the Reds 4-1 from the seventh inning on but it was too big a hole to climb out of, with Michael Massey representing the tying run flying out to end the game.
Royals starter Michael Lorenzen was an excellent pickup last year and performed admirably, and he continued to perform admirably this year. But nagging at the back of my mind, it sort of felt like the other shoe was going to drop sometime. Coming into today, Lorenzen had an ERA of 3.03 as a Royal over the last two years but an FIP of 4.18, suggesting that he had been getting lucky on batted balls.
And whoo boy, today seemed to be an attempt to single-handedly even those two figures out. Lorenzen gave up an eye-watering 11 hits in his five innings of work, walking a trio of batters for good measure. Many of those hits were not particularly hard-hit balls, but managed to find some dirt or grass between Royals defenders.
Lorenzen’s unraveling began immediately as he gave up a double to TJ Friedl, uncorked a wild pitch, and walked Elly De La Cruz. Austin Hays hit a sacrifice fly to score the first Reds run and provide them a lead they would not relinquish. Lorenzen gave up three more runs in the third inning and another pair in the fifth inning, working with baserunners of all kinds and stripes. Those fifth inning runs came off the bat of a Tyler Stephenson two-run blast, proving that, yes, you can hit a home run at Kauffman Stadium.
The closest the Royals offense came to a run during the parts of the game when a run or two would have materially influenced the game happened in the first and fourth innings. One was a Vinnie Pasquantino blast to right field that was juuuust too short, and would have indeed been a home run in 13 ballparks. The other came in the fourth inning when Jonathan India broke an 0 for 11 streak in a single and Vinnie Pasquantino extended his hitting streak. But Salvador Perez grounded into a double play to end the inning.
Oh, yeah—John Rave made his big league debut today. It did not go particularly well, as he struck out so hard in his first plate appearance he lost his helmet and struck out in his second plate appearance also (though he kept his helmet on there). In the seventh inning, he tried for a bunt base hit, and was initially ruled safe but eventually called out on a Cincinnati challenge.
In that seventh inning, the Royals did score three runs. Vinnie got another single and Perez crushed one of the worst pitched you will ever see—a middle-middle cutter at 88 MPH—for a two-run home run. Maikel Garcia doubled, and then came the aforementioned Rave bunt that put Garcia at third base. Nick Loftin’s sacrifice fly scored Garcia to cut the lead to 6-3.
Of course, in the eighth inning, the Reds got another run back on a pair of back-to-back extra base hits, and considering the Royals had scored eight or more runs in only six games this year so far, well, the game was as good as done. Kansas City did try to blow up my recap, which I would have appreciated, but they didn’t quite get it done. Reds pitcher Emilio Pagan gave up a single to Vinnie (his third hit) and hit Salvy with a pitch. Rave worked a very gutsy walk to load the bases, but with one out and the bases loaded pinch hitter Drew Waters struck out and Massey flied out to end the game.
Pagan did balk in a run, which was fun. That made it 7-4.
With today’s loss, the Royals have lost 10 of their last 15 games. They are 29-26.
