Kansas City cruises to 5-3 victory over the Angels

It was a good game

Some games are comfortable victories even when the score is close. Tonight was one of those—well, for most of the game—with the Kansas City Royals winning 5-3 over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

On the pitching side of things, Seth Lugo did everything the Royals could ever really ask of them this year. Over the first six innings, Lugo allowed zero runs. He faced a little trouble in the first inning and the fifth inning by allowing a pair of runners on base in each frame, but key strikeouts got him out. In fact, Lugo struck out the entire side in the fifth inning.

Lugo finally ran into real trouble in the seventh inning, his last of the evening. With two outs, Brandon Drury worked a walk before line drive doubles by Mickey Moniak and Jo Adell. Lugo coaxed the final out from Taylor Ward to end the damage. It was notable that Matt Quatraro left Lugo in—most of the time, managers these days will remove a starter once they face that much trouble in the seventh or later. But Q left Lugo in, and it worked out.

Meanwhile, the Royals struck quickly on the offensive side of the ball, never relinquishing the lead they grabbed from the third inning onward. Carson Fulmer made a throwing error on a pickoff attempt, which led to Salvador Perez hitting in Michael Massey. Then, in the third inning, Paul DeJong hit a DeBomb by crushing a two-run home run, driving in Adam Frazier.

The Royals managed to get a few additional insurance runs in the seventh inning with a one-run lead, which turned out to be very necessary. Bobby Witt Jr., silent with his bat until that point, singled. Vinnie Pasquantino worked a walk. And Perez, the very next batter, singled down the left field line to drive both in—and yes, that does mean Vinnie scored from first base.

In the eighth inning, shortstop Zach Neto managed to tag Kris Bubic with a home run on a belt-high fastball that wasn’t quite up and in enough. But that would be all the Angels managed to do. John Schreiber closed the game, and the Royals got yet another win.

The Royals are now 70-55. If you remember at the beginning of the year, it wasn’t clear that Kansas City would get 70 wins. Well, they have, and they’ve got a month and a half to get more. They’ll need an upper-80s total to clinch a playoff spot, but such is within reach, especially as the Royals continue to batter and bruise subpar teams like the Reds and Angels.