With a heavy heart, Royals’ Yordano Ventura takes loss in 7-2 defeat to Indians

Royals starter Yordano Ventura crouched at the back of the mound before Friday’s game against the Cleveland Indians and poked a finger into the dirt.

He carved the word Dios (Spanish for God) along with the initials of Miami Marlins star Jose Fernandez, who died Sunday, and Oscar Taveras, the Cardinals player who died in a car accident in 2014.

Ventura got to know both of them well during the 2012 Futures Games, and obviously misses them, as he also wrote their initials on his hat.

When he took the mound, Ventura’s warm-up pitches were uneventful, save for his second, which skipped wildly past catcher Drew Butera, an indicator of his night ahead. One inning proved to be the downfall for Ventura as the Royals lost 7-2 in front of an announced crowd of 24,741 at Kauffman Stadium.

“He was tremendous the first two innings,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He was tremendous four through six. Just kind of got out of his delivery in the third.”

In that third inning, the Indians turned a 1-0 deficit into a 4-1 lead. Cleveland’s Roberto Perez drew a walk following a leadoff single by Tyler Naquin and both scored when Carlos Santana’s liner eluded a leaping Paulo Orlando in center. Jason Kipnis’ sacrifice fly to right scored Santana for a 3-1 advantage.

The Indians tacked on another run when Francisco Lindor doubled high off the wall in right, took third on a fly-out and scored on Jose Ramirez’s single.

In the inning, 21 of Ventura’s 27 pitches were fastballs as he failed to keep the Indians off balance, and they made him pay.

“He gave up the hit and he then just started throwing fastballs,” Royals catching coach Pedro Grifol said, translating for Ventura. “He feels like if he had been able to mix it up a little bit, he would have been able to get out that inning.”

Lindor’s three-run homer against Brian Flynn in the seventh inning merely added to a deficit that was too large for the Royals to overcome.

The Royals scored in the first on Eric Hosmer’s RBI single against Indians rookie prospect Ryan Merritt. When Kendrys Morales followed with a single, it seemed like a big inning might be in store.

Instead, Orlando grounded into a double play, and the Royals didn’t have another base runner until Hunter Dozier’s one-out single in the eighth inning. Merritt, Dan Otero and Bryan Shaw combined to retire 20 straight.

Butera followed with a triple against Andrew Miller that scored Dozier and got the Royals a second run.

But the offensive struggles meant that Ventura will finish the year with an 11-12 record after allowing four earned runs Friday on six hits with three walks and eight strikeouts over six innings.

It was an uneven performance in an uneven season. Entering Friday, Ventura had a 2.43 ERA in 19 starts this season; in the other 12 his ERA was 8.58.

“You look at a lot of his starts, it’s just really one inning,” Butera said. “He winds up going seven innings and giving up three or four runs, but it’s really just one inning — usually.”

Because this was his third full season in the rotation, it’s easy to forget sometimes that Ventura is just 25 years old.

His best season remains the 2014 rookie campaign, which was capped by his stirring performance in Game 6 of the World Series. Hurting from the death of countryman Taveras two days earlier, Ventura threw seven scoreless innings of three-hit ball against the San Francisco Giants in an elimination game.

While that game seems like a distant memory for some Royals fans, it’s a reminder of what Ventura can bring to the rotation in 2017.

“He’s got an overpowering fastball, but he’s not an overpowering pitcher,” Yost said. “He’s got to be able to command his breaking stuff and command his change-up and spot his fastball, and then he’s going to be ultra-successful.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2016 at 9:57 PM with the headline "With a heavy heart, Royals’ Yordano Ventura takes loss in 7-2 defeat to Indians."