Soft singles sully series sweep, central supremacy squandered in 7-5 loss

A series of bloops and flares sunk Kansas City.

The Kansas City Royals had a late lead but saw it slip away due to softly hit balls and questionable managerial decisions as they fell 7-5 to the Cleveland Guardians this afternoon.

Michael Massey wasted little time getting the party started, watching three pitches before turning around 95 from Tanner Bibee and lining it into the right field stands for a leadoff homer. A couple batters later, Vinnie Pasquantino dropped the barrel on a low curveball and golfed out another souvenir to right field to give Kansas City a 2-0 lead. These homers were surrounded by three strikeouts as Bibee was uninterested in letting his fielders participate in the inning.

In the bottom of the inning, Michael Wacha worked himself into a jam when he plunked Andrés Giménez on the foot with a breaking ball before José Ramírez served up a soft single to put runners on the corners with one out. Josh Naylor went down 0-2 and hit a potential double play ball, but he managed to beat it out and push a run across. David Fry doubled to keep the inning going, but Wacha retired Will Brennan to limit the damage to one run.

After a quiet second inning, Bobby Witt Jr. came to the plate in the third determined to make up for missing out on a couple juicy breaking balls in his previous at-bat. Bibee’s first pitch to him was an absolute pie — a hanging changeup that was begging to be crushed. Witt obliged, sending it into the left field concourse for Kansas City’s third solo shot of the afternoon. They had a chance for a big inning when Pasquantino singled and Salvador Perez worked a walk, but MJ Melendez flew out and Paul DeJong popped up to end the inning.

After the first, Wacha settled in very nicely, retiring ten straight Cleveland batters after Fry’s double. He kept hitters off balance with his changeups and threw a ton of strikes. The consecutive batters retired streak ended when Jhonkensy Noel led off the inning with a bloop single. Daniel Schneemann followed with a single of his own before Bo Naylor sacrificed the runners over to give Cleveland two runners in scoring position with one out. Steven Kwan then hit a flare down the left field line that Witt got to but failed to catch, allowing Noel to score from third. Having been let down by his defense, Wacha dug deep and blew away Giménez with fastballs for the second out. Ramírez worked the count full before Wacha threw a pretty lousy changeup. He got away with it as Ramírez grounded out 4-3 to end the threat with the lead intact.

Melendez led off the sixth by working an eight-pitch walk. DeJong followed with a blooper to right that gave Kansas City runners on the corners with nobody out. Despite being at 96 pitches, Bibee remained in the game. Adam Frazier would make the Guardians regret that as he lined a single to center that pushed the lead to 4-2. Tim Herrin was summoned to stanch the bleeding and he nearly succeeded, striking out Freddy Fermin on three pitches and getting a 1-6 for the first two outs. He failed to get the third as Maikel Garcia, pinch hitting for Massey, got a cement mixer slider and lined it up the middle to score DeJong. Eli Morgan replaced Herrin and retired Witt to end the inning, but the lead was 5-2.

Wacha took the mound in the seventh inning, threw one pitch to Bo Naylor, and turned and watched as it sailed over the right field fence to cut the lead to 5-3. Kwan then singled the other way and, after a mound visit, Wacha remained in the game to face Giménez. Matt Quatraro then became the second manager in this game to get burned by leaving their starter in too long as Giménez singled the other way to give the Guardians two baserunners with nobody out. Lucas Erceg was summoned to put out the fire. His run of perfection was bound to end at some point and, as it turned out, “some point” was today. After moving both runners up with a wild pitch and retiring Ramírez, Josh Naylor hit a popup that dropped in no-man’s land in center to score Kwan. After Fry flew out, Brennan and Noel hit consecutive soft liners that found grass and gave Cleveland a 6-5 lead.

Chris Stratton pitched the eighth inning so the Royals would enter the ninth down 7-5. Facing one of the AL’s best relievers in Emmanuel Clase, Witt managed a knock but there was no rally to be had.

The loss drops Kansas City to 75-59 and hands the division lead back to Cleveland. The Royals will travel to Houston for a four-game set that starts tomorrow.

Michael Wacha: 6.0 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR

Tanner Bibee: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 3 HR

Vinnie Pasquantino: 4-5, HR, R, RBI

Josh Naylor: 3-5, 2B, R, 2 RBI