Cunning Cole confounds clueless cats, competitors conquered 8-3

Ragans was stellar and the offense was relentless.

Cole Ragans put together his second consecutive scoreless start while the Royals offense had another big day against a helpless Tigers pitching staff as Kansas City completed the sweep with an 8-3 victory this afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.

With each team sending a tough lefty to the mound, both Matt Quatraro and A.J. Hinch stacked their lineups with seven right-handed hitters to try to gain the platoon advantage. The problem for Detroit: just two of those — Mark Canha and Andy Ibáñez — have an above-average batting line against lefties this season. The Tigers had just a 76 wRC+ against left-handed pitching entering today. The gambit would prove fruitless for them as Ragans absolutely carved. He retired the first eight Tigers, six of them on strikes, before walking Jake Rogers with two outs in the third. He punched out the next batter on three pitches for his seventh K.

Ragans’s fastball velo climbed throughout the day. In the first inning, he sat 94-95. By the sixth he was consistently hitting 96 and ran it up to 98. Tigers hitters couldn’t catch up, whiffing 10 times on 21 swings against the pitch. He would carry a no-hitter into the sixth inning before Riley Greene, one of two lefties in Detroit’s lineup, singled the other way with two outs.

The Royals had much more success against Skubal. With one out in the second, Nelson Velázquez walked on four pitches, none of which were particularly close. Freddy Fermin then worked the count full before pouncing on a fastball middle-middle. He missed a home run by just a few feet, hitting the top of the wall in left-center and settling for an RBI double. Two batters later, Garrett Hampson traded places with Fermin when he also worked a full count before golfing a one-hopper off the wall to give the Royals a 2-0 lead.

Velázquez led off the fourth inning with a long homer to left that gave the Royals a 3-0 lead. It came off the bat at 110.2 mph, which was his hardest-hit ball of the season and hardest-hit homer of his major league career. They added another in the fifth when Maikel Garcia, Witt, and Pasquantino hit three consecutive singles, each one a soft liner into the outfield. Skubal’s day was done after five innings. This was his first start of the season in which he both allowed more than two runs and failed to complete six innings.

The bullpen took over for Ragans in the seventh and immediately allowed Detroit back into the game. Will Smith allowed a walk and a single before serving up a pie to Ibáñez that he whacked off the left field wall for a two-run double, cutting Kansas City’s lead to 4-2. John Schreiber entered the game and walked the pinch-hitting Kerry Carpenter, but he managed to secure the third out and avert further damage.

Determined not to let the bullpen spoil Ragans’s superb effort, the offense responded in the bottom of the inning. Pinch-hitting for Hampson, Adam Frazier walked to lead off the inning. Two batters later, Garcia went the other way for his second single of the game, moving Frazier to third. Then Witt swung at a 91 mph curveball (!?) at his shins with two strikes that he had absolutely no business swinging at. Because he is Bobby Witt Jr, he roped it into center field and turned it into a double despite Greene getting the ball back in quickly. Frazier and Garcia both scored and the lead was back up to four runs. After Pasquantino struck out for the second out, Salvador Perez was plunked and Velázquez drew his second walk of the game to load the bases. Fermin then sent the first pitch he saw right up the box for a two-run single, pushing the lead to 8-2.

Staked to a much larger lead, the bullpen managed to get the last six outs, though Angel Zerpa surrendered a run in the process. Regardless, James McArthur entered in the ninth to close out the 8-3 victory.

Just one fun fact today:

• This was the fourth straight game in which the Royals scored at least eight runs. The Royals had previously had just four such streaks, the last of which came July 8-12, 1999. In none of those streaks did the Royals also allow four or fewer runs in each game, as they have in this streak. This team might be pretty good.

The win improves the Royals to 32-19. They will have the day off tomorrow before starting a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays at the Trop this Friday.

Cole Ragans: 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 12 K, 0 HR

Tarik Skubal: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HR

Nelson Velázquez: 1-2, HR, 2 R, RBI, 2 BB

Andy Ibáñez: 1-4, 2B, 2 RBI