Royals reduced to rubble, routed 4-2

Lance Lynn once again had his way with the Royals at Guaranteed Rate Field in tonight’s 4-2 Kansas City loss.

Kris Bubic had a solid start by ERA, but a lousy start by FIP. He allowed baserunners in all but two of his innings. Depending on what you consider baserunners, anyway. Andrew Vaughn led off the inning lacing a base hit to left-center, but Michael A. Taylor gunned him down with an excellent throw-and-tag to Michael Massey. Despite loading the bases with one out in the first inning, and allowing a plethora of baserunners in general, Bubic managed to contain the damage to two runs, both on solo homers. Bubic was lucky that Elvis Andrus’s fifth inning shot was solo as Romy Gonzalez was cut down trying to steal second right before it. Bubic managed a 1-2-3 sixth, but he departed with the Sox holding a 2-1 lead.

That one run that the Royals managed with Bubic in the game was a nuke off the bat of Bobby Witt Jr. in the fourth that briefly gave Kansas City a 1-0 lead. But the Royals had no answers otherwise. Following Witt’s homer, they loaded the bases via consecutive singles from Nick Pratto and Taylor and a beaning of Massey. But Lynn snuffed the rally by coaxing a double play off the bat of Hunter Dozier. Outside the fourth inning, the Royals managed just one baserunner off Lynn in the form of a Nicky Lopez single.

Amir Garrett came on for Bubic in the seventh and just didn’t have it tonight. He allowed three straight baserunners to begin the inning and was promptly lifted for Collin Snider. Unfortunately, Snider could not pull off a Houdini act. Two of the runs came around to score to give Chicago a 4-1 lead.

Kansas City’s offense finally began to show life in the ninth, but it was too little too late. With two outs, Taylor tripled and Massey brought him home with a single. But Sox closer Liam Hendriks stuck with the game plan against Dozier, feeding him pitches down and away and striking him out on four pitches.

A few interesting nuggets:

• The teams combined for just four extra base hits. None of them were doubles.
• The Royals had only two at-bats with runners in scoring position.
• I mentioned earlier that Bubic had a solid outing by ERA but not by FIP. His ERA tonight: 3.00. His FIP: 9.12
• Dozier had about as miserable of a night offensively as possible: 0-4 with three strikeouts and a GIDP. He stranded four runners. The only other Royals batter to strand even a single runner was MJ Melendez.
• 2-5 in the Royals lineup went a combined 5-15. The rest were 1-17.
• This is the ninth game this season that the Royals have failed to draw a walk.
• Lance Lynn has made three starts against Kansas City in Chicago. In those three starts, he has totaled 22 innings with an 0.82 ERA, 27 strikeouts, and no walks.

The loss drops Kansas City to 53-78. They remain 2.5 games ahead of Detroit in the division standings. They will go for the series victory in the rubber match tomorrow afternoon.

Kris Bubic - 6 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 2 HR

Lance Lynn - 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, 1 HR

Michael A. Taylor - 2-4, 3B, R

Elvis Andrus - 1-4, HR, 2 RBI, R