Rockies slam Royals in grand fashion, win 5-2

It had to end sometime, didn’t it?  On a nice night in beautiful Colorado, the Royals fell for the 1st time since Taylor Swift released her new single and for the 685th time since her first album.  It seems, tonight at least, that being a team of a state and not a city has paid off.

The scoring began in a decidedly non-Royals fashion, but quickly righted itself and continued in a very Royals fashion.  In the second inning, Alex Gordon shot a solo line drive homer to right field, the 78th home run of the year—or 13 fewer than the next-worst American League team.  In the fourth inning, Josh Willingham doubled against starter Jorge De La Rosa, but the Royals decided to Small Ball him to victory, and they succeeded.  Two sacrifice flies by Gordon and Erik Kratz brought him home, but unfortunately that was all she wrote for scoring then.

After a triple and a sac fly by the Rockies in the bottom of the fourth brought the score to 2-1.  But that was not the end.  Nor the beginning of the end.  No, that would come in the sixth inning.  Both parts. 

The sixth inning began innocently enough.  Duffy, cruising along, got a pair of quick outs.  He induced a routine ground ball from Nolan Arenado, who rolled a ball to third base.  Christian Colon, starting at third base, picked the ball up and threw it wide to Billy Butler in a play that almost certainly will be discussed at length by Lee Judge in tomorrow’s post.  It was ruled an error on Colon, but Butler was certainly as much at fault—Butler got his glove on it, seemingly catching it with ease, but it popped back out like a kernel of popcorn encountering a sufficient amount of microwaves.  This is a play that almost certainly does not happen with Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer, whatever that’s worth.  Instead of a quick inning and three outs there was one on and two outs.  After a Wilin Rosario single and a Corey Dickerson walk (aided by the ump on a couple of borderline calls), Matt McBride stepped up to the plate.  He saw one pitch, a fastball, and smashed it into the left field seats; with the thin air of Colorado, it was gone from the moment the bat and ball connected. 

From there, well, the Royals were very Royal.  Bereft of Salvador Perez (knee) and Mike Moustakas (bench) and their combined 29 home runs, there were no more offensive sparks to be had (but, unfortunately, many double plays).  But, of course, Duffy was pitching, so that means the Royals don’t score runs.  The Duff Man, 8th in the American League among pitchers with at least 120 innings pitched before this game and 5th afterwards, accrued another loss; a pitcher’s win-loss records is important!  Duffy has 11 losses and lacks the will to win!  BECAUSE REASONS! 

The Royals drop to 70-56, and remain in first place by a whole game over Detroit.  They…

Wait.  Am I dreaming?  Fourteen games over .500?  In first place?  Over Detroit???

I’m wary of the bubble being popped, and we find out that there is a man behind the curtain who did this just to inflict pain upon Royals fans, the jerk.  But for now the Royals are still in first place.