Young hitters power Royals to 5-3 victory over Cleveland

There are fewer and fewer reasons to watch a Royals game this year, and less and less of a chance that the last two months of the year can be meaningful in any context. But if they do, it’ll look a little like tonight, with young stars performing well and sharp starting pitching. The Royals eked out a win against the Guardians 5-3 tonight in an exciting contest.

Kansas City kicked off the scoring in the second inning. After a Jose Ramirez throwing error on Matt Duffy and a Kyle Isbel single, Edward Olivares doubled home both of them on a ball that would have even been a home run in five parks. In the sixth inning, Salvador Perez hit a two-run homer to score himself and Bobby Witt Jr., who had singled.

That wasn’t the only fireworks off the bat of a Royal. Maikel Garcia hit his first career opposite-field home run, a 349-foot shot that would have been a home run in only seven other parks. Still, you’ll take it—it was 102.1 MPH off the bat, a nice piece of hitting by the young third baseman. It gave the Royals a 5-1 lead in the seventh inning.

Of course, the Royals bullpen is a sieve, and they sure let some more runs score. Jose Cuas has a nice story, but he is not a big league caliber pitcher; Will Brennan and Myles Straw doubled and singled, respectively, to plate a pair of Guardians and shorten the lead to two runs.

To be fair to Cuas, the umpire was...uh...something else in his inning. Cuas led off the inning by throwing a four-strike walk to David Fry in some of the worst umpiring you’ll see this year, which is wild considering how bad it feels umpiring has been.

Fortunately, Royals starter Ryan Yarbrough was solid. Yarbrough channeled his inner Zack Greinke (the effective version), pitching to contact and limiting walks while fooling very few Guardians hitters—he ended with one strikeout against zero walks. The only real trouble Yarbrough ran into was in the sixth inning, when noted regicide Amed Rosario doubled and Josh Bell singled.

Then the ninth inning happened. Scott Barlow has been shaky lately, and shaky he was again tonight. Andres Gimenez immediately singled on a ground ball, and while Barlow did induce a fly out from David Fry, Brennan singled on a soft line drive. Gimenez advanced to third on a Straw lineout, but Barlow was able to get a ground ball from Steven Kwan, which Pratto made a nice play on.

All told, Garcia, Witt, and Isbel combined for five hits tonight, and it was a snappy contest that took about two and a half hours. The only real issue with the offense: they are swinging like crazy. Over the last two games, they have struck out 18 times and walked...zero times. Not great, Bob.

Kansas City prevents Cleveland from climbing to .500 in the Royals’ 29th win of the season. CAN WE GET TO 30 TOMORROW????