The Royals saved the last episode of the series against Tampa Bay 9-8 on Wednesday evening. With the win, Kansas City completes the 10-game home stand with a winning record of 6-4.
As they had in the previous two games, the Royals dug themselves into a serious hole. In the top of the first inning, in which Jakob Junis made his third start of the season, Tampa Bay tapped him for four runs. Joey Wendle doubled in a run, Brandon Lowe crushed a two-run homer and Francisco Mejia doubled in the fourth run.
Facing a big backlog early on, Kansas City Rays starter Michael Wacha began to chop away. In the bottom of the second, Hunter Dozier hit his first homerun of the season into the left field bullpen. Two innings later, Jorge Soler hit his first homerun since Opening Day to make it a 4-3 game.
After three scoreless innings, Tampa Bay scratched the fifth run, which was an unorthodox game. With runners on first and second base and no one out, Yoshi Tsutsugo poked a soft ball to Andrew Benintendi in left field. When the ball fell, Benintendi tried to throw Brett Phillips out with a force play, but he wildly knocked over Hunter Dozier. When the ball hit the backstop, Phillips tried to score from third base. However, Salvador Perez calmly picked up the ball and freaked out at Junis, who cut Phillips off the plate. However, on the next at bat, Wendle batted in a run on a sacrifice fly.
Trailing 5-3 in the bottom of the sixth, the Royals had one of the worst innings in recent memory. The frame started with Carlos Santana rippling a 103.6mph shot to the wall in the right field, but it was knocked down by a leaping Phillips. In the following at bat, Perez smoked one at 107.1 mph to the right field wall. However, the ball hit the top of the wall and bounced back in. To make matters worse, Perez thought the ball passed and started his homerun trot. He was tagged out between the first and the second.
Two unfortunate outs should be enough, right? Miss.
Soler became the third victim of the inning when he drove a ball 103.6 mph into left field. This ball, like Perez’s, hit the top of the wall and bounced back in. To add salt to the wound, the inning ended on a dive stop by Wendle at third base.
After Tampa Bay extended its lead to 6-3, the Royals didn’t make it through in the sixth. Andrew Benintendi led off with a single, Michael A. Taylor walked and Hanser Alberto came on with a pinch-hit RBI-double – both runners scored.
When things couldn’t get more electric, Santana threw a two-out, starting, two-run bomb to the right field. It was his second in as many days.
However, the Rays batted back to tie the score on a pinch-hit, RBI-double by Randy Arozarena in the top of the eighth. They regained the lead in the ninth on another RBI-double by Wendle.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Royals used diabolical magic to make fans feel nostalgic. Taylor started the inning with a bloop single to the right (same spot as Josh Willingham’s pinch-hit single in the 2014 Wild Card). Dyson entered the game and immediately swept second base. Alberto bunted him to third base and brought out Nicky Lopez with one out. With the infield drawn, Lopez perfected a safety squeeze to score Dyson – the lot on 8.
A few batters later, Perez got runners on first and second base with two outs. On a 2-1 slider, Perez singled past a diving Wendle for a walk-off winner. Sounds familiar?
Kansas City (10-7) has an off-day tomorrow before embarking on a nine-game road trip starting in Detroit. Mike Minor takes on Casey Mize on Friday. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. CT.