Errors, Didi too much for Royals in 7-2 loss to Yankees

What started as a year of promise for Jakob Junis quickly turned sour after knotching a 7.14 ERA in June and hitting the DL in July.

However, he looked good in his return last week, giving up just one run over 4.0 innings while striking out six. Things didn’t go as swimmingly tonight.

Powered by Didi Gregorius and two costly Adalberto Mondesi errors, the Yankees tagged Junis for seven runs — only three of which were earned — enroute to a 7-2 win over the Royals Thursday night.

The trouble started in the first inning when Junis hit Aaron Judge with a 93-MPH fastball, who was moved to third on a Gregorius double and would score on a Giancarlo Stanton sacrifice fly. After an Aaron Hicks walk put runners on the corners with two outs, Mondesi booted a Gleyber Torres grounder that allowed Gregorius to score and put the Bombers up 2-0.

Both Gregorius and Mondesi weren’t done.

A one-out RBI double by Austin Romine put the Yankees up 3-0 in the 4th. After a groundout from Brett Gardner, Miguel Andujar stepped into the box in place of the injured Judge, who left Yankee Stadium to get an MRI on his injured right wrist.

Andujar reaches on Mondesi’s second error of the game, this time a throwing error, to extend the inning. Gregorius responded well to being gifted a free at-bat, blasting a three-run home run into the right-field seats to put the Yankees up 6-0. They would add another run in the 5th to make it seven unanswered runs to start the game.

On a positive note, Salvador Perez stayed hot, blazing a 420-foot home run over the left-center field fence to make it a 7-2 game in the 6th.

That was all the scoring the Royals would do. But hey! Brandon Maurer pitched a scoreless inning. So there’s that.

With the loss, the Royals fall to 31-71. They’ll be back in action tomorrow night with Brad Keller on the mound, who struck out a career-high eight batters in his last start.