Royals lose to White Sox 7-3 in slugfest

In a game in which what seemed like roughly nineteen home runs were hit every inning, the Kansas City Royals lost a slugfest to the Chicago White Sox, 7-3.

Adalberto Mondesi, Ryan O’Hearn, and Alex Gordon hit homers for the Royals. That was the entirety of the Kansas City offense. The White Sox did more.

Rather than write the recap of this game, I have decided to use the power of robots to help us enjoy what is an otherwise meaningless baseball loss between two terrible teams in September. I used the website TalkToTransformer, an AI neural network, to prompt it to write my recap for me. I did take the liberty of stitching together pieces that, well, made sense. Somewhat.

Anyway, please enjoy. The Royals are 53-92.

The Kansas City Royals lost tonight’s game against the Chicago White Sox by a shocking 9-0 score, after a team’s best player went missing with an apparent back injury (and the first game of the season for the Royals) early in the game. The loss snapped a four-game win streak for the Royals, who had gone 15-6 and lost the American League Central. In four games in September, the Royals were 5-7 with six straight losses. The Royals were not only playing their best baseball of the year, but were having their best September since 1986, when Ken Griffey Jr. and his .933 OPS propelled the club to back-to-back World Series appearances.

So who was the injured player? It’s not as complicated as you might think. The injured player is Kendrys Morales, and this is the full story.

The injury happened with the White Sox leading 3-0, in the fifth inning of the game. The Royals scored on an Adam Eaton single to left field. On the play, the ball fell into the infield, where it was ruled a fielder’s choice, but left field cleared.

As fans ran for the dugout, they spotted Kansas City pitcher Kelvin Herrera in the crowd behind 3B Alex Gordon. The fans shouted out “Hey, Herrera!” as Herrera was taken away from the area.

As the fans began to chase Herrera, he put his arms on the back of the dugout, while several players ran out of the dugout toward Herrera and said, “Hey, Herrera!” It is unclear whether Herrera had an official word about the issue or if he was just shouting to attract Herrera’s attention.

The fans are now going over Herrera’s back to try to calm him. When the fans start chanting “Good afternoon! Good afternoon!” Herrera responds with “Good afternoon!” but is unable to answer. When Herrera is asked who he is supposed to be cheering for, he responds “Cristiano Ronaldo” and is immediately booed by the crowd.

The Royals roared back against the White Sox in the fifth inning, with an RBI single from Michael Young that pushed Kansas City’s lead to 2-1. In the seventh, Alex Gordon hit a walk-off solo shot in the bottom of the frame. Jose Abreu’s two-run homer with the bases loaded put the White Sox ahead 3-2.

The Royals had three hits in the second inning and scored twice off of a bases-loaded, RBI single by Zack Greinke.

The Royals kept the lead up in the third inning with two more singles, a two-out, infield single by Chris Young and a two-out, walk-off single by George Springer in which he scored Young off a pitch.

Greinke’s two-run homer off Alex Colome ended the game, his 22nd of the season. His previous homers, which were both RBIs, came in April.

Ned Yost said after the game that the Royals might have to sit him down for the rest of this season, because they aren’t happy with his attitude.

”It’s disappointing to lose a game like that. We could have easily won it. It’s a shame. I know the guys have tried to talk to him. We’ve told him, ‘Don’t talk to our players like that. You need to let’s put in your time, and we’ll figure it out.’ But he talked all day yesterday, and he’s been trying to talk today, and I don’t think he’s listening. So this is what we’re going to have to do. I think he’s going to get a talk-to tonight.”

So the Royals did. The Royals went with a three-man bench tonight to pitch on the game and a two-man bench (Carlos Beltran and Billy Butler) to throw out the occasional runner. They did not want Yost to have another meltdown like Sunday.