Lots of strikeouts, little offense, Royals fall 4-1

Not much mustered up on offense for the Royals bats to support the pitching staff in this one. The Royals struck out 16 times tonight against the four arms the Rays sent out tonight. This comes after a 10 strikeout performance last night and another 16 strikeout game against the White Sox the day before that one.

Glenn Sparkman took the hill for the Royals in this one, making his second career major league start. After going through the first three innings without any serious trouble, the only damage being a Willy Adames solo home run, Sparkman allowed two runs with two outs in the fourth inning off of a Joey Wendle triple. That was his night, finishing with four inning of three-run ball.

As probably expected, the Royals could not get anything going off of the Rays stellar lefty Blake Snell. He allowed one run in six innings (the one run thanks to Ryan O’Hearn’s fifth long-ball of the season), striking out 11 himself, only walking one.

The Royals bullpen kept things moderately close with Burch Smith and Kevin McCarthy working four innings combined with one run allowed. A deep bullpen for the Rays held the Royals out of reach though, as Chaz Roe, Adam Kolarek, and Sergio Romo all worked scoreless frames.

The Royals did bring the tying run up to the plate in the top of the ninth after a Lucas Duda walk and an Alcides Escobar double. Romo locked down though, getting O’Hearn and Adalberto Mondesi to each go down swinging.

Game three of this series tomorrow. Same time. The Royals will send out Jake Junis, who is in the middle of a nice run of outings. The Rays will counter with TBD.