With 5-1 loss to Yankees, Royals enter first losing streak of season

They are an unavoidable reality of the baseball calendar, as detestable as a late-night, cross-country flight or a two-week slump at the plate. A losing streak: All teams must experience them.

For two months the Royals denied their existence, ceasing every temporary, two-game skid with another onslaught of winning. They bent to reality on Tuesday evening, dropping their third game in a row for the first time in 2015, this one a 5-1 loss to the Yankees.

“I was hoping to go a little bit longer,” manager Ned Yost said, and called Wednesday’s series finale “a big game, because you don’t want to go to four. We’ve got to find a way to come out and win a baseball game.”

For Kansas City, 28-17, still atop the American League Central and still aspiring for October baseball, the challenge becomes awakening their suddenly slumbering bats. The group has managed only three runs in the last 27 innings.

The latest pitcher to master the Royals was Yankees starter Adam Warren, who yielded just two hits in 6 1/3 innings. The Yankees utilized their two-man relief wrecking crew of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller for the last six outs.

“Man, we swung at a lot of balls today,” Yost said. “A lot of sliders down. (Warren) spotted his fastball well, mixed in some good curveballs and change-ups, and located his slider pretty darn good.”

The silence broke, briefly, when Paulo Orlando sliced his first big-league home run in the sixth inning. When Orlando’s homer cleared the right-field fence, the club felt their one bit of levity on the night. The ball was caught by a fan. To quell the howling masses, the fan threw a baseball back onto the diamond.

This was not Orlando’s baseball. It was a dummy caught in batting practice, the Royals said. Orlando traded an autographed jersey and a set of autographed batting clubs to retrieve his memento.

“The first one, you never forget,” Orlando said. “It was great — and in Yankee Stadium, too.”

It was not enough to offset a deficit created by starter Jason Vargas and reliever Joe Blanton. Activated from the disabled list on Tuesday afternoon, Vargas allowed two runs in four innings. Blanton, his replacement, gave up three runs in the fifth. Kansas City could not compensate for it.

The Royals returned to Yankee Stadium fewer than 24 hours after their worst defeat of the season. Jeremy Guthrie gave up 11 runs and left the game with no outs in the second inning Monday. As the day drifted into irrelevance, Eric Hosmer played right first and Salvador Perez manned first base. The Yankees won by 13.

“It’s way easy to get over a day like yesterday,” Yost said. “Because you have days like that. You just have them. And there’s nothing you can do about it.” He added, “It’s a lot easier to get over losing one of those than it is losing a ballgame, 2-1, in the ninth inning, when you had opportunities.”

Guthrie took a pounding, and the rotation’s ERA paid for his performance. The statistic rose to 4.49 entering Tuesday, which left the team ranked No. 24 in baseball.

Vargas returned to action after missing the entire month because of a strained left flexor muscle in his elbow. Danny Duffy’s bout of shoulder stiffness hastened Vargas’ arrival. Yost intended to let Vargas throw somewhere between 65 to 75 pitches.

Vargas expended 17 of his allotment on the game’s first three batters. After two strikeouts and a walk, first baseman Mark Teixeira came to bat. Catcher Salvador Perez set up on the outer half of the plate for a 1-0 fastball. His glove was moving back to the middle, in search of the baseball, when Teixeira swung. His two-run shot landed in the Kansas City bullpen.

From there, Vargas found a rhythm. He struck out six. He did not allow another walk. An error by Omar Infante extended the third inning, and Vargas finished with 76 pitches in four innings.

“The pitch to Teixeira was definitely a mistake,” Vargas said. “It was right over the plate. Other than that, I felt good out there. Didn’t have any lingering effects of what was hampering me before. So you’ve always got to come out of it feeling like that’s a plus.”

With Vargas expended, Yost turned to Blanton. He had sat out all of 2014, and joined the Royals 10 days ago after a stint in Class AAA Omaha. The Yankees pounced on him immediately.

Outfielder Chris Young singled, and so did Alex Rodriguez. Teixeira did more damage when Blanton flung a fastball over the middle. Teixeira smoked a double between Lorenzo Cain and Orlando. Cain bobbled the ball as it bounced off the wall, which allowed Rodriguez to rumble home from first base.

Teixeira took third base on Cain’s error. The Yankees added another run because of this. Chase Headley hit a flare to left field, where Alex Gordon dived and caught it for an out. But he could not make an accurate throw home, and Teixeira tagged up for the Yankees’ fifth run.

The Royals did not mount much of a comeback. They placed two runners on in the ninth inning with one out against Miller. He brushed aside Eric Hosmer and Kendrys Morales to snuff out Kansas City’s chances.

Now comes the hard part, the point all championship clubs must confront: Stopping the losing streak before it becomes more than a passing disturbance.

“We’ve definitely got to bounce back tomorrow,” outfielder Lorenzo Cain said. “Sometimes slumps like this happen. But we’ve got to get it going tomorrow, and put this behind us.”

Yankees 5, Royals 1

E: Infante (3), L.Cain (3), Headley (10). LOB: Kansas City 4, New York 6. 2B: Teixeira (9). HR: Orlando (1), off Warren; Teixeira (14), off J.Vargas. RBIs: Orlando (7), Teixeira 4 (35), Headley (22). SF: Headley.

Runners left in scoring position: Kansas City 1 (K.Morales); New York 2 (Teixeira, Gregorius). RISP: Kansas City 0 for 2; New York 1 for 3.

TableStyle: SP-basepitchersCCI Template: SP-basepitchers

Umpires: Home, Marty Foster; First, Mike Muchlinski; Second, Mike Winters; Third, Mark Wegner. Time: 2:31. Att: 33,414.

This story was originally published May 26, 2015 at 8:41 PM with the headline "With 5-1 loss to Yankees, Royals enter first losing streak of season."