The Royals have been looking for answers, trying to find something, ANYTHING, to break the horrid stretch of baseball recently. They finally found something tonight. And they did not have to do a bunch of small ball for it.
The Reds were starting a little-used reliever with control problems as an opener. The Royals made them pay. Carter Jensen led off with a walk, Bobby Witt reached on a HBP, and Cags walked to load the bases for Isaac Collins, who struck out. With two outs, Lane Thomas came to bat. The pitcher threw a middle-middle fastball to Thomas, who blasted the ball at 106mph and 409 feet into the left field seats, drawing boos from the sparse crowd. First inning grand slam, spotting Luinder Avila four runs before he threw a pitch.
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And that was just the start.
In the fifth inning, Witt just missed a homer on a pitch he golfed into the left-center field gap. It bounced off the top of the fence, and JJ Bleday, the left fielder, seemed very confused. Like his glove got stuck in the wall or something. Witt ended up on second with a double. After a Pasquantino out, up came Jac Caglianone. He got a slider that hung in the middle of the zone, and dang he did not miss it. An impressive 108mph, 419 foot bomb to deep left-center field, an oppo-taco. Those were the fifth and sixth runs of the night.
The Royals added another run in the sixth. Nick Loftin walked and advanced to second on maybe the worst pickoff attempt I have ever seen. The Reds pitcher, Brandon Leibrandt, was half-assing a bunch of throws to first base, apparently worried about Loftin stealing. Well, he eventually badly missed a throw that skipped to the tarp in foul territory. No matter – Leibrandt went down 3-0 to Witt, who was intentionally walked with first base open and two outs. Pasquantino finally knocked in a run by sneaking a line drive between the first and second basemen.
Michael Massey hit his fifth homer of the season in the seventh inning to add another insurance run. They got a lot of insurance! But they still wanted a bit more – they tacked on their ninth run of the game in the ninth inning with two singles and a sac fly.
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I feel like that does not totally do justice to the offensive outburst. The second inning was the only one in which the Royals did not have a baserunner. They had 13 total hits – Kyle Isbel was the only player who did not reach base (Jensen did not get a hit but did get a walk). The top 5 exit velos in the game were all Royals, and 8 of the top 10 were Royals. They went 3-12 with runners in scoring position and left 9 guys on base and still scored 9 runs!
And, oh, by the way, Luinder Avila threw five innings of one-run ball. It wasn’t clean – he had four walks and gave up a homer to JJ Bleday on an extremely hittable fastball – but it was enough! Schreiber, Lange, Black, and Morgan (that’s a law firm, not a bullpen, you can’t fool me Royals) combined to finish off the game, though Morgan did give up a run on a single and a double. He made up for it I guess by getting all three outs by strikeout, limiting the damage. They struck out seven guys in their four innings of relief.
While it is just one win in the grand scheme of things, and the Royals still find themselves in a deep hole, this game was really nice to watch. Like finding an oasis in a desert.
The Royals are now 23-37. The Reds are 30-29. They play again tomorrow at 6:10pm US Central time.
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