Yankees jump out to 5-0 lead and coast until Royals comeback falls short in 9th
It was 5-0 before the game thread was even up (sorry, guys) and it didn’t get much better until the 9th.
Heck, the original title for this recap was “Yankees Lots – Royals Zero”, but it was a little better than that.
In the 2nd, Cody Bellinger led off with a triple and Jazz Chisholm walked. But Kris Bubic almost got out of it with minimal damage as two outs only plated a single run. But then walk, double, single, and single and it was 5-0.
It would stay that way most of the game as the Royals got nothing against Yankee starter Pedestrian Schmidt. Oh, hey – Google tells me his first name is actually Clarke. He came into the game at exactly league average with an ERA+ of 100. With today’s line of 6 IP, 2 H, 3 BB, 7K, he lowered his ERA to 3.60.
Aaron Judge hit a home run in the 7th. No, I’m not doing some Judge pun – we get enough of that garbage at the national level and this was an “oh by the way” stat padder off Steven Cruz.
The Royals attempted to make it interesting in the 9th. Vinnie singled and Salvy hit a bomb to end the shutout. Cags grounded out, but then (Nick) Lofty Expectation (h/t technole) restarted the rally with a single and John Rave got the third infield(!) single of the inning to bring the tying run to the on-deck circle. But that’s as close as the Royals would get.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone had seen enough and brought in Devin Williams, New York’s on-again, off-again closer. Mark Canha struck out and Jonathan India grounded out to end the threat.
If the game had ended 6-0, I was going to say “Capri Sun and orange slices all around”, but Kansas City did put up a fight in the 9th.
However, the team has lost the first two games of the series. The last game is scheduled for tomorrow night at 6:40 Royals time.
In the grand(er) scheme of things, the Royals have now fallen back to .500 for the first time since they were 15-15 on April 29th. Couple that with the bad news about Cole Ragans and it doesn’t feel so good right now.
This isn’t some mid-00s Royals that might have lucked into a 2-1 or 4-2 start, but you knew that whenever they fell under .500, they were staying there the rest of the season. But the schedule isn’t exactly easy over the next month so it’s going to take some real work to keep above .500 going into the Trade Deadline.