Royals Fall, Dishonor Concept of Patriotism with Sloppy Play

In a fundamentally unsound effort, the Royals had three errors, two costly ones coming in the seventh. The first of those errors in the seventh came when Jose Mijares hit Juan Diaz in the back with his pick-off throw. The throw caromed off Diaz's back and rocketed into the stands, giving Diaz two bases. Diaz then scored on Michael Brantley's weakly hit single to center to put the Indians up two runs, 7 - 5. It is entirely possible--one could even say it's likely--that Diaz would have scored on Jason Kipnis's line-drive single that followed Brantley's, but with one out in the books, Irving Falu blew a sure double-play grounder that would have gotten the Royals out of the inning without allowing the second run of the inning, down just two (if not only one) runs.

This is all immaterial, I suppose, as the Royals were losing anyway. They played imprecise baseball throughout. Irving Falu had a particularly rough game. Juan Diaz was only on base in the seventh because Falu was unable to throw him out on a grounder onto the grass that he was unable to pull the ball out of his glove initially. Diaz reached in part due to Falu's stutter. It also seemed, whether fair or not, that every sharply hit grounder scooted past a diving Irving Falu. Mike Moustakas was charged with an error (objectively, this error should never have been charged when Jason Kipnis advanced to third after being incorrectly called safe--human element for the win--at second after having been caught (and tagged out) in a run-down. Kipnis scored but never should have as he was actually tagged out, but these runs scored. At the end of the day, the Royals only had themselves to blame for all but one of Cleveland's runs.

The shame of it all is that the five runs the Royals did put on the board should usually have been enough for them to win. Hangings of dongs from both Brayan Pena and Eric Hosmer were both in vain. The Son of God's struggles have called many to question their faith. One hopes that the homer to center was a harbinger of greater things to come. While his approach at the plate hasn't necessarily looked better, the results have certainly been more desirable over the past week. Hosmer's slugging Grecian counterpart had a decent day at the plate, reaching three times, twice via the hated base-on-balls. Jeff Francoeur and Jarrod Dyson also got on base twice, each drawing a walk to augment their hits. Dyson's hit was an electric triple up the right field line and then scored as the throw to third was airmailed into the stands.