Slugging, steals, and sloppy security seal series sweep 6-2

After Zack Greinke worked around a two-out single for a scoreless first, the Royals offense got right to work in the bottom of the frame. Maikel Garcia laced Lucas Giolito’s first pitch into left field for a single, where a Will Brennan misplay allowed Garcia to reach second base. Bobby Witt Jr. followed with a grounder to short that he reached on thanks to a shoddy throw from José Tena, which also allowed Garcia to move up to third. After MJ Melendez popped out, Nelson Velázquez got ahead in the count 3-0 before crushing a meatball of a heater for his 15th home run of the season and 12th as a Royal.

Kansas City kept the pressure on in subsequent innings but missed out on several scoring opportunities. Nick Loftin and Drew Waters started the second with consecutive singles but were both stranded. Melendez and Edward Olivares were both in scoring position in the third and did not score.

Meanwhile, Greinke was gutting it out against a soft Cleveland lineup, surrendering plenty of traffic but keeping them quiet through three innings. He struck out Kole Calhoun in the fourth inning to move to fourth place on the all-time franchise strikeout leaderboard. Greinke would not complete the inning, however, as that punchout proceeded a double and preceded a couple more knocks and a sac fly that cut Kansas City’s lead to 3-2. After the sac fly, Greinke walked off the mound for perhaps the last time at Kauffman Stadium.

Angel Zerpa entered to pitch and proceeded to have one of his best outings of the season, setting down the first nine batters he faced before allowing a two-out double in the seventh. In the interim, Kansas City got their lead back up to three with an RBI single from Witt in the fourth and an Olivares RBI groundout in the seventh. They tacked on an insurance run in the eighth thanks in part to yet another Guardians error to make the score 6-2. Zerpa came back out for the ninth and finished out the win and the series sweep with a scoreless inning.

The win moves the Royals to 51-102. This is their seventh win in the past eight games, which ties the best eight game stretch that Kansas City has had this season. They will get tomorrow off before heading to Houston for a three-game weekend series.

Zack Greinke: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 0 HR

Lucas Giolito: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, 1 HR

Drew Waters: 2-3, 2B, BB, R, 2 SB

Josh Naylor: 2-4, 2B, R