The Royals saved the series final Wednesday night against Tampa Bay, 9-8. With the win, Kansas City finished home for ten games with a winning record of 6-4.
As in the previous two games, the Royals have dug themselves into a serious hole. In the first place with Jakob Junis making his third start of the season, Tampa Bay named him for four runs. Joey Wendle doubled in a run, Brandon Lowe crushed a two-stroke homer, and Francisco Mejia doubled in the fourth run.
Kansas City faced a major shortage early on, and Michael Wacha, the starter of the rays, began to pinch off. In the home half of the second round, Hunter Dozier strained his first home race of the season in the left field bull. Two innings later, Jorge Soler reached his first home game since opening day to make it a 4-3 game.
After three pointless innings, Tampa Bay scratched its fifth run, resulting from an unorthodox game. With runners-up in first and second place and no one out, Yoshi Tsutsugo stabbed a soft flying ball to Andrew Benintendi in the left field. When the ball fell, Benintendi tried to throw Brett Phillips out on a power play, but he overturned Hunter Dozier wildly. While the ball bounced to the backstop, Phillips tried to score from the third point. However, Salvador Perez calmly picked up the ball and turned it over to Junis, who chopped Phillips off the board. On the next bat, however, Wendle ran on a sacrificial fly.
The Royals trailed 5-3 in sixth place and had one of the most unlucky innings in recent memory. The framework started with Carlos Santana firing a shot at 103.6 km / h in the right field towards the wall, but it was driven off by a jumping Phillips. In the ensuing bat, Perez smoked one 107.1 mph to the right field wall. However, the ball hit the top of the wall and bounced back. To make matters worse, Perez thought the ball had passed and started his jogging step. He was marked out between first and second.
Two unlucky outs should be enough, right? Wrong.
Soler became the third victim of the innings when he stretched a ball of 103.6 km / h to the left field. This ball, just like that of Perez, hit the top of the wall and bounced back. Throwing salt in the wound ends the innings on a dive stop from Wendle on third base.
After Tampa Bay extended its lead to 6-3, the Royals made up for not getting through in the sixth. Andrew Benintendi started with a single, Michael A. Taylor walked, and Hanser Alberto penetrated RBI double with a pinch hit, scoring both runners-up.
When things could not get any more electric, Santana dropped a two-out-of-two-running bomb to the right field. It was his second in so many days.
However, The Rays bounced back and tied the game on a pinch hit, RBI double by Randy Arozarena, in first place from eighth. They regained the lead in ninth place on another RBI doubles by Wendle.
Down in the ninth, the Royals used a demonic magic that made fans feel nostalgic. Taylor started the shift with a flash single to right field (same spot as Josh Willingham’s pinch in the 2014 Wild Card). Dyson entered the game and immediately swept the second base. Alberto beat him to third and took out Nicky Lopez with one. With the infield, Lopez perfected a safety button to score Dyson – and level it at 8 p.m.
A few batsmen later, Perez ran out first and second with two. On a 2-1 move, Perez tore a single and passed a diving Wendle for a winner. Does that sound familiar?
Kansas City (10-7) has an outside day tomorrow before starting a nine-game away game, starting in Detroit. Mike Minor will face Casey Mize on Friday. The first pitch is presented at 18:10 CT.