Royals give up five home runs to Mariners, extend losing streak to seven games

The Royals returned home after a brief three-game road trip in Detroit to take on the leagues front runner in wins, the Seattle Mariners. Unfortunately, the hottest offense would not be cooled as the Mariners smacked five home runs in route to a 13-5 win.

Sending Homer Bailey to the mound, the 32-year old veteran would be asked to stifle the bats that found themselves among the all-time greats in home runs through the first 11 games. Needing an offensive spark out of the gates, Kansas City wasted no times in ending their eight-inning scoreless streak. In the bottom of the first, Whit Merrifield extended his hitting streak to 29 games, now only one behind Hall of Famer George Brett. On the ensuing at-bat, Adalberto Mondesi clubbed an RBI-double into the left-center gap, giving the Royals a quick 1-0 lead.

Alex Gordon continued his impressive start to the season, bringing home Mondesi on a line drive to right field and spotting Bailey some much needed run support before his counterpart Felix Hernandez could even record an out. Strangely enough, after having the training staff attend to him during the opening inning, Hernandez was forced out of the game due to “virus-like-symptoms” before he even reached the second.

Back on the field, the early advantage the Royals enjoyed quickly evaporated in the top half of the second. 5’9, 250 lb Dan Vogelbach drove his fifth home run of the season into the empty bleachers in right field and shortstop Dylan Moore followed it up by launching his first major league home run above the Mariners bullpen in left, knotting the game back up at two apiece.

Kansas City manufactured two more runs in the bottom of the third on another Gordon single and a Chris Owings dribbler through the left side, giving him his third hit on the season. The 4-2 lead stood pat up until the top of the fifth when Bailey struggled to put away Mariners slugger Domingo Santana, who came in as the league leader in RBI’s. On a 3-2 pitch with Martín Maldonado set up low and away, Bailey came high and tight with a 95 mph heater. The four-seam fastball was dropped over Hunter Dozier at third, once again squandering the slim lead the Royals could surmount.

From the moment the lead vanished for the second time in the night, the beat down commenced. A questionable decision to send Bailey back out on 90+ pitches for the sixth inning resulted in a leadoff home run by Edwin Encarnacion and ultimately chased Bailey out for good. Tim Hill first entered from the bullpen but wound up hitting a batter and giving up an RBI single to Dee Gordon while only facing three batters. When Kevin McCarthy cam into the game, however, the floodgates burst open as an RBI double by Santana and a second home run by Encarnacion in the same inning, effectively put an end to the Royals hopes of winning their first game in April. The Mariners would plate eight that inning to make it an insurmountable 12-4 lead. Each team would add a run to make the final score 13-5.

Game two will be played tomorrow night with another 7:15 start. Jakob Junis will go toe-to-toe with Marco Gonzalez, who has already collected three wins alone on the year, more than the Royals total in 2019. On the bright side, Merrifield will look to tie George Brett for the club record of 30 straight games with a base hit.