Royals leave a million people on base in loss to Rangers

The Royals lost today, 6-1, to Texas. I’m not sure it’s fair to say that they shouldn’t have lost, but they had so, so many opportunities not to lose. They squandered every single one of them.

Jorge Lopez, who continues to be plagued by surrendering a ton of home runs, put his team in a 2-0 hole when Kole Calhoun hit a two-run bomb in the first inning. The Royals would get one run back in the frame, when Nicky Lopez (though Steve Physioc called him Jorge Lopez) hit a double and scored on Adalberto Mondesi’s RBI single.

The Royals had two-on, nobody-out in the second. They had the exact same situation in the fourth. Both times, Billy Hamilton handed over an out by lying down a sacrifice bunt, and both times, Whit Merrifield failed to get the run home.

The Rangers put the knockout punch in Jorge Lopez’ night when Logan Forsythe hit a two-out double off him, pushing his pitch count to 108, with two outs in the sixth inning. He was clearly done to every single soul that was watching, besides Ned Yost, that is. Yost left him out there to predictably give up a two-run bomb to Ronald Guzman. Lopez’ night ended with 112 pitches, and a home run being smashed on the last one. It was a Ned Yost classic.

In all, the Royals had nine hits and plated just one run. Nicky Lopez had a good night; he had two hits and scored the team’s only run. Mondesi had three hits. People got on base, they just didn’t execute with runners in scoring position. Last night, the team started like 7-for-7 with two outs and RISP. It happens. Weird sport.

Former Royal Mike Minor earned the win by working his way in and out of trouble all night. Jorge Lopez got the loss, dropping him to 0-5. His ERA is 6.29 after allowing five runs on seven hits in 5.2 innings. He struck out seven, but he can’t keep the ball in the yard. He seems to be an obvious bullpen move, but then again, I’m not sure who should take his place in the rotation.

It’s no coincidence that the moment Steve Physioc was put on TV, the games started taking four hours to complete.

The record is 15-28. Yuck.

Tomorrow: the three-game set concludes with an afternoon tilt. Homer Bailey and Lance Lynn will duel at 12:15 pm CDT.