Royals hammered by Rangers in 12-2 loss

On a warm 80-degree night at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals couldn’t have looked uglier in a 12-2 loss to the Texas Rangers. It’s the 11th loss in 12 tries at home this season.

After collecting just one hit on Monday night, the Kansas City offense showed signs of life early. In the bottom of the first, Bobby Witt Jr led off the frame with a triple and MJ Melendez drove him home on a sacrifice fly. However, the offense went silent for the remaining eight innings. Unfortunately for the Royals’ lackluster offense, the pitching staff was far from “on their game”.

Brad Keller managed to log just four innings and walked five batters — a season-high for him. Due to the command issues, Texas tallied three runs off the right-hander.

Jose Cuas worked around some trouble in the top of the fifth inning, but the flood gates busted open in the sixth. With his sub-2.00 ERA, Carlos Hernandez climbed the bump with the expectation of keeping the Royals within one run. Not only did that not happen, but the game spiraled out of control. Hernandez allowed five runs on five hits and didn’t record an out. Marcus Semien, who’s tortured the Royals in five games this year, had the knockout punch with a three-run blast into the seats in left-center field.

Two innings later, Josh Staumont and Josh Taylor attempted to save the other bullpen arms by recording the final six outs. Like Hernandez, the two arms only caused more damage. Texas erupted for four more runs — including another three-run bomb off the bat of Adolis Garcia.

In total, the Royals pitching staff surrendered 12 runs on 12 hits and walked eight hitters. It’s the second time in less than 10 days that the Rangers have scored 10+ runs on Kansas City pitching.

The Royals, 4-14, will try an avoid being swept for the third time at home before the end of April. Brady Singer will be asked to stop the bleeding against Martin Perez. First pitch is set for 1:10 p.m. CT.