Royals complete sweep over Reds, 8-1

Bobby Witt Jr. collected his 500th MLB hit in only his 432nd MLB game.

What else is there to say about the Royals in Cincinnati that hasn’t already been said? This was a beatdown of epic proportions that virtually, simultaneously killed the Reds’ playoff hopes while doing much to secure the Royals’ own.

Brady Singer, despite a short rain delay in the second inning, pitched extremely effectively, today. He went six shutout innings, striking out six and walking only one while allowing five singles. Sam Long came on to pitch the seventh but never looked comfortable in the rain and left after securing only one out when he walked three in a row, including Jonathan India to give the Reds their only run on the day.

Lucas Erceg came in and heroically struck out the next two hitters. Then he pitched a scoreless eighth inning. After the Royals got some more insurance in the ninth, James McArthur was tasked with finishing the game off. He pitched a clean ninth with a strikeout. don’t look now, but McArthur now has five straight scoreless appearances. Over that span, he has struck out six, walked none, and allowed only one hit in 4.2 innings.

Dairon Blanco got the scoring going for the Royals. After the rain delay, he led off the third inning with a single, stole second on a strikeout by Maikel Garcia, and scored on Vinnie Pasquantino’s single to right. Bobby Witt Jr., who was walked intentionally in between the stolen base and the run, scored on a sacrifice fly from Salvador Perez to give the Royals an early 2-0 lead.

Dairon Blanco led off again in the top of the fifth, and well, did Dairon Blanco in Great American Ballpark things.

Maikel Garcia followed up with a double to left, advanced to third on a Witt flyball to right, and scored on a Vinnie sacrifice fly. The perils of a pitcher who doesn’t strike out many and does give up a lot of batted balls in the air, I suppose. That was Vinnie’s 13th sacrifice fly on the season which not only leads all of MLB but ties the Royals’ record for sacrifice flies in a season with more than a month to go.

After Erceg’s late-inning heroics, the Royals piled on in the ninth. Freddy Fermin led off and singled. Michael Massey collected his third hit of the day and was replaced by Adam Frazier as a pinch runner. MJ Melendez pinch-hit for Garrett Hampson and drove in Fermin with a single. With runners at the corners and no outs, the Reds brought their infield in. That allowed Kyle Isbel, in his first at-bat of the day, after coming in as a defensive replacement, to gather an RBI single passed first-baseman Ty France. Garcia grounded into a fielder’s choice but Bobby Witt slapped a single into right for his 500th base hit of his young MLB career. Finally, Garcia scored on a Pasquantino chopper that hopped over the third baseman.

The Royals complete the road trip 4-2 and are now 31-30 in road games this season. This was the first three-game sweep of a non-White Sox team since they swept the Tigers in mid-May. The Guardians and Red Sox each lost, though the Twins are still playing in a tie game in the ninth. That means the Royals are now closer to catching the Guardians than they are to the Red Sox catching them. They are behind in the division only by three games and now lead the Red Sox by 3.5. Their magic number falls two down to 36 with only 38 games left in the season.

Next, the Royals will return home to host the Angels. They had better take advantage of their last week opponent for a while. After them, they’ll host the Phillies, then visit the Guardians and Astros, before hosting the Guardians again. Seth Lugo will look to get right for the Royals. The Angels will ask Carson Fulmer to take the mound. The game will start at 7:10 KC time.