Red-hot Mondesi can’t carry Royals alone, they lose 4-3

In case you hadn’t heard, Alex Gordon is retiring after tomorrow’s baseball game. The Royals have done a couple neat things to honor him with the little time they have left with him on the team. You probably already heard about the plaques above his locker that will forever bear an image of his pose as he rounded first base after hitting the game-tying home run of Jeurys Familia in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series next to his number 4. The Royals players decided to do a little something for him, tonight, too.

Some former players even got in on the action!

Despite the nice gesture, things did not start well for the Royals. Carlos Hernandez gave up four runs, three earned, in less than two innings before he got pulled. It’s an incredibly small sample size to be sure, but he reminds me of no one so much as Jorge López. Great stuff that gets hit, seemingly inexplicably, all around the ballpark.

Things could have been worse, but there’s something else Alex Gordon is known for other than just his pine tar jersey and in the second inning he reminded us all perhaps for the last time:

Adalberto Mondesi tried to take over for the legendary left-fielder and to put the team on his back. Coming into tonight’s game he had reached base in eight straight plate appearances and earned a hit in seven straight at-bats. It took until his fourth plate appearance to finally retire him. Before that he hit a home run, an RBI double, walked, and score two runs. He tied the Royals’ record for reaching base in eleven straight plate appearances but finished one hit shy of Joe Randa’s record for hits in consecutive at-bats.

Alas, all the scoring was finished even before Mondesi’s streak came to an end. The Royals ultimately lost by the same score that hung on the scoreboard after the third inning. The third-straight match between these teams that ended with only a difference of one run.

Tomorrow will be the final Royals game of the season. Brady Singer will pitch for the Royals against Jordan Zimmermann. The game time has been moved to 12:05 CDT to accomodate potential rain later in the day.