Now that’s a little more like it.
Back to .500 go the Royals after a 13-2 thrashing of the Detroit Tigers in the series finale, as the Good Guys pounded 18 hits to do what they should’ve been doing to Detroit all along—beating the breaks off of them.
It made for a pleasant change tonight that, when Ned Yost dipped into his reserves, it was because the Royals had the game in hand rather than the other way around.
Defying the most expert of predictions—although in a game that featured Jason Hammel and Matthew Boyd as starters, small children would likely have bet the over in this one—it was something of a nailbiter for large parts of the evening. The Royals got their early runs in the second, thanks to Salvador Perez (solo home run, the franchise-record 169th this season for the Royals) and Alcides Escobar (run-scoring triple), while Detroit’s runs came across via Mike Moustakas error and an Ian Kinsler home run.
Wednesday night, it was the Royals turn for a couple of big innings, using a four-run seventh and an eight-run eighth to take a 2-2 game and turn it into a 13-2 laugher.
Four of the first five Royals to come to the plate in the seventh doubled—Escobar, Alex Gordon, Whit Merrifield and Melky Cabrera, with a Lorenzo Cain single tossed in for good measure. Cain scored Merrifield, who scored Gordon, who drove in Escobar for the inning’s first three runs, while Cain himself scored on a passed ball.
The eighth began with back-to-back singles for Jorge Bonifacio and Escobar, who had a nice little three-hit night. With one out, Merrifield rapped his third double of the game into the gap, scoring Bonifacio and Escobar, then came around on a Paulo Orlando single.
That precipitated a Detroit pitching change, but the Tigers were in no better shape with Zac Reininger than they had been with Joe Jimenez. Hosmer greeted the new hurler with a bases-clearing double, then Salvador Perez provided his second home run of the night with a deep fly to right center.
¡Adiós! Salvy se despide de la segunda bola en el día de hoy. #MLBVenezuela#ArepaPower@SalvadorPerez15pic.twitter.com/D3oigqRMdU
— MLB Venezuela (@MLB_VZ) September 7, 2017
Same, @MLB_VZ. Very much same.
13-2, Royals. Right back in the thick of things. Shouts to our boy Whit (aforementioned three doubles), Salvy (aforementioned two homers) and Escobar (four hits, which I feel like purchasing billboards to crow about).
Fewer shouts for Moustakas, who looked gimpy all night before being lifted in the seventh for what we’re calling “right lateral knee irritation.” The single most Royals thing ever would be Moustakas staying tied with Steve Balboni for the rest of the season. I’m sure the fanbase would take that well.
Optimists: “Join us tomorrow as the Royals continue to fight, scratch and claw to stay in contention for the second Wild Card spot.”
Pessimists: “Join us tomorrow to see what new-and-improved way the Royals come up with to rip out the collective hearts of the fanbase and blithely whizz all over them.”
Rex Hudler: “Join us tomorrow when I spend 11 minutes talking about a chicken salad sandwich I had in Poughkeepsie, New York back in 1991.”
Ned Yost: [silently stares directly into the sun until everyone gets uncomfortable]
Thursday night begins a fairly important four-gamer against the Twins, who the Royals are battling for the Wild Card. Sam Gaviglio, who was waived by Seattle last week, will start the first game against Kyle Gibson, last seen blanking the Royals over six innings a week ago. None of that previous sentence makes me feel anything except nausea and an impending sense of doom.