Royals are playin’ some ball, smash Tigers 8-3

11 games above .500

The Kansas City Royals are good. The boys, as they say, are playin’ some ball.

Tonight, the Royals won their 30th game of the season. It is May 20 and Memorial Day is a week away. Last year, the Royals won their 30th game in July. JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH. Unbelievable. This team is leagues better than last year and it’s great.

On the starting pitching side, Michael Wacha was ridiculously efficient. He was living a bit in the middle of the zone and only seldomly had overwhelming stuff—he only struck out three—but he was able to conquer the Tigers nonetheless.

In the fourth inning, Kelly Carpenter crushed a very poor middle-middle fastball for a solo home run. And in the seventh inning, Carpenter again hit a Wacha pitch for extra bases and came around to score on a Colt Keith double. The end result, though: seven innings pitched, two runs. You’ll take it.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Royals did strike early. In the second inning, Michael Massey kicked off his dangerous night for Tigers pitchers (in more ways than one) with a home run.

In the third inning, the Royals mounted a two-out rally. Vinnie Pasquantino walked and Salvy hit a single. And then Massey absolutely mashed one into the hip of Tigers pitcher Reese Olson. Then some shenanigans occurred, I dunno you should just watch it:

A few uneventful innings went by, and then the Royals did one of their patented “what if we just score a bunch of runs in the inning.” They batted around the lineup, and it was a glorious time. Well, not for Kansas City native Joey Wentz, who gave up five hits and didn’t record a single out.

Salvy kicked off the party with a home run. It was his ninth homer of the season, and it was a beauty. He knew it immediately.

Afterwards, Massey doubled. Then, Freddy Fermin singled. MJ Melendez, who has been in a deep slump, hit a nice clean line drive gap single. Hunter Renfroe then notched his only hit of the night, a double to score Massey and Fermin. Kyle Isbel walked, and then Maikel Garcia hit a line drive single of his own. By the end of the sixth, the Royals had another six runs and were leading 8-2.

The Tigers fought back in the eighth inning. Kind of. Well, they were allowed to. The combination of Tyler Duffey and Chris Stratton walked three Detroit batters and allowed a single, but the Tigers were only able to grab one run to make it an 8-3 ball game. It could have been much, much worse; Duffey did not look good whatsoever, and the umpiring, which was bad all night, all went the Tigers’ way.

Stratton, though, managed to get out of it and close out the game to send the Royals to 30-19, a full 11 games over .500. The last time this happened was a long time ago. Long live these Royals, man.