Royals escape MLB oubliette, defeat Athletics 5-1

Coming into today Athletics’ starter Mason Miller had never allowed a major league home run. He also throws 100 MPH. Neither thing helped him as he faced Salvador Perez in the first inning.

If you can’t read the embedded tweet above the home run went an estimated 462 feet. That’s the longest for a Royal this year and the longest of Salvy’s career. The exit velocity was over 112 MPH and put a dent in the wall above the upper deck fountains.

Today’s Royals starter Ryan Yarbrough may miss a few starts after this, but not because he pitched poorly. He exited with a final line of two strikeouts, no walks, and three hits in 5.2 innings pitched to earn his first win of the season. Unfortunately in recording the final out, he took a line drive off of the face. He left the field under his own power but kept his face covered with a towel. Here’s hoping the damage isn’t serious and he recovers quickly.

After Salvy, two of the Royals most recent promotions paid off in a big way. After giving up the lead in the fourth inning, the Royals answered in the bottom half of the inning. Salvy singled to lead off the inning and then advanced to second on a wild pitch before scoring on a looping liner into left-center from Maikel Garcia. In the bottom of the eighth the team put together another rally to give closer Scott Barlow some breathing room. Salvy led off with a single again but this time MJ Melendez immediately followed with a single before Nick Pratto blasted a double into right center to score both of them. Pratto advanced to third on Garcia’s out and scored on a sacrifice fly from Michael Massey.

Carlos Hernández continued his recent upward trend with a scoreless 1.1 innings in relief of Yarbrough. Scott Barlow also continued his trend of looking for like his former self by striking out two in the ninth, despite it being a non-save situation by the time he entered the game.

Every Royals batter reached base at least once today except for the truly unlucky Nate Eaton, who still only has one hit on the entire season. Vinnie Pasquantino was the only other batter to not record a hit but he did earn another walk, which gives him 19 compares to only 17 strikeouts on the season.

The Royals escape the weekend series without suffering the indignity of a sweep by what would have been the second-best team in baseball to claim that title for themselves. They’ll start a four-game series with the White Sox and old friend, Manager Pedro Grifol tomorrow. If the Royals were to sweep that series, a very unlikely outcome, they’d be able to escape the AL Central basement. Zack Greinke will face off against Dylan Cease in the opener.