Bundles of baserunners beached by boys in blue, beaten 3-1
Seven hits and six walks with little to show for it.
The Kansas City Royals had plenty of baserunners but were completely unable to come up with the big hit, wasting an excellent Cole Ragans start to lose to the Detroit Tigers 3-1.
The Tigers wasted no time against Ragans. Andy Ibáñez got behind in the count before taking 98 to the elbow. It looked an awful lot like Ibáñez leaned into the pitch, but he was nevertheless awarded first. Matt Vierling followed by belting a middle-middle cutter off the wall in left field, scoring Ibáñez from first. Ragans managed to get three straight groundballs to end the inning without further damage, but Detroit led 1-0 before any Royals picked up a bat.
With one out in the bottom of the inning, Bobby Witt Jr. worked a walk against Casey Mize. With Salvador Perez batting, he swiped second for his 30th stolen base of the year. In the process, he became the first shortstop in MLB history to record two 30-30 seasons. The other three batters in the inning were retired though, and Witt was stranded at second base.
Each team would manage exactly one baserunner in each of the next couple innings, including the leadoff man reaching a few times, but neither team was able to sustain anything of a rally as Mize and Ragans worked around the baserunners with no damage. The Royals had something cooking in the third when Kyle Isbel led off the inning with a single. He was promptly erased on a double play, but Witt walked for the second time and Perez singled up the middle to bring up Michael Massey with a couple runners on. He came through, grounding one past a diving Colt Keith to score Witt and tie the game. Hunter Renfroe then tagged one to center field, but Parker Meadows made a lovely running grab at the warning track to take away extra bases. Kansas City hit four balls over 103 mph in the inning with just one run to show for it, but it was a brand new ballgame heading to the fourth.
Kansas City had a big chance to take a lead in the fifth. With one out, Pham singled up the middle before Mize walked Witt for the third time in the evening. That brought up Perez, who walked on five pitches to load the bases. At that point AJ Hinch had seen enough and took the ball from Mize. He gave it to Shelby Miller, tasked with putting out the fire. Miller needed just one pitch to do it, throwing a slider that Massey grounded straight to Keith for an inning-ending double play.
The Royals had another chance to score slip through their fingers in the seventh. Yuli Gurriel walked, Paul DeJong singled off Sweeney’s glove in the 5-6 hole, and Isbel walked on four pitches to load the bases with two outs. This turned the lineup over, but Pham hit a routine flyout to end the inning.
Ragans failed to retire the side in order in any of his innings. That sounds bad, yet he managed to complete seven frames without allowing a run after the first inning. He did face the minimum a few times thanks to a double play in the second and a brilliant throw-and-tag from Freddy Fermin to Massey to nab a would-be base stealer in the fifth. In the seventh, Fermin showed off his arm again when he cut down Trey Sweeney trying to take second on a ball in the dirt. That gave Ragans another 1-2-3 inning despite a leadoff walk.
The game remained tied at one entering the ninth inning. Leading off against Lucas Erceg, pinch-hitter Wenceel Pérez blasted a pitch to right that I thought was gone off the bat. Fortunately I was wrong as it bounced off the bullpen fence just a few feet shy of clearing it, forcing Pérez to settle for a double. Erceg dug deep, retiring the next three batters with an emphatic strikeout of Sweeney to send the game to the bottom of the ninth. Naturally, since the 2024 Tigers have the best bullpen in the history of baseball, the Royals then went down in order for the third inning in a row to send the game to extras.
Erceg remained in the game for the tenth inning with Detroit’s 8-9-1 hitters due up. After retiring the leadoff man, he balked the zombie runner over to third base. On the very next pitch, Meadows blooped one into shallow left to put the Tigers ahead 2-1. After needing nine pitches to strike out pinch-hitting Jace Jung, Erceg walked Vierling on four pitches. Riley Greene then hit a liner up the middle that took a weird hop and got past Witt, scoring Meadows to push the score to 3-1. Angel Zerpa took over and managed to end the inning, but Kansas City needed at least two runs to keep the game going.
The Royals had their first baserunner since the sixth inning with 2-3-4 coming up to bat. An ideal situation for a rally. But they were no match for Jason Foley, going down in order without even advancing the runner past second to end the game.
The loss drops the Royals to 82-70. They will try to salvage the series finale tomorrow night.
Cole Ragans: 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 0 HR
Casey Mize: 4.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 0 HR
Bobby Witt Jr.: 0-2, 3 BB, R
Parker Meadows: 2-4, 2B, R, RBI