Bobby Witt Jr. hits go-ahead grand slam, Royals roar back to win 8-5

MJ Melendez and Hunter Renfroe with homers, too!

Some baseball players warp mathematics.

Like, I know that Bobby Witt Jr. is hitting well—the best in the entire league, in fact—but mathematically speaking, he makes an out about 60% of the time. Even if he’s going hot, you figure he’ll make an out maybe half the time. But when Witt came up to bat with the bases loaded in the eighth inning, you could feel it in your gut that the chances of him getting a hit were somewhere around 100%. He did indeed get a hit, crushing a first pitch, a go-ahead grand slam to put the Kansas City Royals up 8-5 over the Chicago White Sox.

It was a wild inning. Down 5-2 against a White Sox team that had lost 14 consecutive games, Hunter Renfroe and MJ Melendez swatted back-to-back home runs to bring it to a one-run game. With two outs, Maikel Garcia singled to send Steven Wilson to the dugout. Garcia stole second base before new pitcher John Brebbia hit Adam Frazier with a pitch. Michael Massey worked a hell of a walk to bring Witt to the plate. And that, well, that was that.

The Royals won 8-5 against the White Sox, but it’s hard not to be drawn from Witt’s complete dominance. In the ninth inning, James McArthur did his job and got three relatively toothless ground balls. The only problem was that two of them were hit deep into the shortstop hole to Witt’s right, and were very likely to get hits—except Witt showed off exemplary range and arm strength to throw both hitters out.

Kansas City has played a lot of games this year, but this one felt special. Yeah, it was against the lowly White Sox, who have now lost 15 in a row and are about to lose 80 games before they win 30. But with two outs, to have the gumption that the team needed to get Witt to the plate when it mattered? Amazing.

To be sure, the Royals still have some deep flaws. The bullpen is one; Angel Zerpa and Chris Stratton gave up five hits and three earned runs, including back-to-back doubles by Eloy Jimenez and Andrew Benintendi and a home run by Andrew Vaughn. The non-Witt hitters are another, especially on the bench; Kansas City needs some better hitters than Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson and Dairon Blanco to pinch hit and fill in. Alec Marsh did an ok job in his 4.2 innings, giving up two runs and seven baserunners in that time. His ERA is creeping closer to 5.00 than it is 4.50, which is not great.

But tonight it didn’t matter, because Bobby Witt Jr. did Bobby Witt Jr. things and Royals fans are in for a treat every time he steps on the field. The Royals are now 58-49.