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The Guardians completed their sweep Wednesday afternoon, blanking the Royals 4-0.
The early innings were dominated by pitching. Konnor Pilkington came out firing, striking out five batters and keeping the Royals off the board in the first three innings, generating ten whiffs in the process. Meanwhile, Brad Keller managed to keep the BABIP gods at bay and retired the first seven batters faced. But Cleveland got on the board in the third. Following a one out single by Richie Palacios and a two out walk to Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario smacked a single up the middle to score Palacios.
In the top of the fourth, the Royals had runners on first and second with nobody out and the bases loaded with one out. What do you think happened? The Royals ended the inning without scoring. Cleveland plated another in the bottom of the frame.
At this point, this game wasn’t really worth paying attention to anymore. Kansas City scattered some base runners here and there but couldn’t get anything going offensively. Cleveland picked apart Keller, scoring one run each in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings. Keller allowed five batted balls with over 100 mph exit velo. The Royals struck out 15 times, three each coming from Hunter Dozier and Bobby Witt Jr. They also failed to record an extra base hit. The Guardians struck out just twice. Per Statcast, the Royals collectively had a .187 xBA, while the Guardians had a .329 xBA.
The loss drops Kansas City to 16-33. They have the fewest wins in MLB and their .327 win percentage is the lowest. This is the sixth time the Royals have been swept this season and their fifth separate losing streak of at least four games. They are 13 games behind Minnesota in the division. They will have the day off tomorrow before welcoming the Houston Astros to Kauffman Stadium on Friday.
Brad Keller - 6.0 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 0 HR
Konnor Pilkington - 5.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 0 HR
Andrew Benintendi - 3-4
Andrés Giménez - 2-4, 2B, RBI, R
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