KC can’t finish sweep, loses 7-1

Resident desiccant Jordan Lyles made the start for Kansas City today and did Jordan Lyles things. He allowed four runs in six innings. That means he didn’t even achieve a quality start but didn’t completely melt down as he has other times. Unfortunately for him, the Royals’ Sunday lineup was as ineffective as many had imagined it might be prior to the first pitch.

Only one Royal managed a complete orbit around the pitchers’ mound, today. Nick Loftin reached on a single, advanced to third on a pair of Astros errors (more on that in a moment,) and scored on a sacrifice fly by Drew Waters. The Royals lone run was not even earned.

Of course, by the rulebook, the Royals should have scored two runs in that inning. The first error on the Logan Porter batted ball was Framber Valdez throwing wild to first. The second was when Jose Abreu attempted a bit of prestidigitation and rolled a one, throwing his glove at the baseball to keep it from getting away. By rule, that should have caused the Royals to be awarded two additional bases - it would have been three if it had been a batted ball - but despite an umpire conference, they were awarded only one each. Had they been awarded two, Loftin would have scored and Porter could have come home on Waters’ fly ball.

The game was still fairly close until the ninth inning. I think it was always obvious that recalling Brad Keller and allowing him to pitch requires the people involved to exhibit less intelligence than your average pistachio, but that’s what happened. Keller made his second appearance since being recalled. He allowed three more runs on three more walks, and two hits, without striking anyone out. For those of you keeping score at home that makes five walks in two innings or ten batters faced. He’s also gotten a caught stealing and two double plays to keep the batters faced down, but that’s still a ridiculously high walk rate and it matches what we saw from him in the minors during his rehab stints.

Positives include a two-hit game for Nick Loftin and scoreless outings from Jackson Kowar and Tucker Davidson.

If I were Matt Quatraro I would probably spend at least the first week of the off-season doing a bit of bedrotting and wondering if managing a baseball team is really what I want to do with my life if its going to be like this.