Reeling Royals drop fourth in a row, get swept by Yankees in 4-2 defeat

The losing streak reached four games at 3:51 p.m. local time, and 15 minutes later the leaders of the Royals stood at their lockers to address the latest defeat. Swept for the first time this season, they did not hide from the reality after a 4-2 loss to the Yankees, and they did not waver in their belief in the briefness of this skid, a stretch of baseball marked by suspect pitching and absent offense.

“We just didn’t come and play our game,” third baseman Mike Moustakas said. “But tomorrow’s a new day. We’re not going to look back on this. We’re going to look forward.”

“Just a bump in the road, man,” first baseman Eric Hosmer added. “We didn’t really do anything this entire series. That’s part of the game — 162 games, you’re obviously not going to be firing on all cylinders all year.”

For most clubs, these words might ring hollow. Yet the Royals, 28-18, have earned the benefit of the doubt, a luxury afforded them by the last month of 2014 and the first two months of 2015. Kansas City seized the best record in baseball through the first 42 games of this season. They do not believe the subsequent four games have altered their trajectory.

“We put ourselves in a great position,” starter Chris Young said. “We’re a great team. We’ll bounce back. I’m not worried about it.”

The loss did force a tie in the American League Central. The Royals now share top billing with the scorching Twins of Minnesota. Kansas City will rest Thursday before taking on the Cubs at Wrigley Field this weekend. The Royals can only hope their offense awakens. They have managed only five runs in the past 36 innings.

Twelve days ago, the hitters tagged Yankees starter Michael Pineda for five runs at Kauffman Stadium. On Wednesday, he fanned eight and surrendered only a solo homer to Moustakas. Kansas City plated a run in the eighth against reliever Dellin Betances but went quietly in the ninth. Manager Ned Yost admitted his team has “just cooled off.”

“A lot of it was Pineda, but some of it’s us right now,” Yost said. “We’re not swinging the bats. We’ve cooled off a little bit. We had opportunities to get back into that game a couple of times. We just couldn’t take advantage of it.”

A prime example surfaced in the fifth when the Royals trailed by three. After a double by Paulo Orlando and a single by Alcides Escobar, Moustakas represented the tying run. He had already launched a solo home run. But Pineda punched him out in four pitches, then struck out Lorenzo Cain in three.

A case of offensive malaise afflicts several members of the starting lineup. The symptoms vary, but the results do not. In the past 10 games, Cain is hitting .171 and Hosmer is hitting .189. Alex Gordon has two extra-base hits in his last 10 games. The club could benefit from the return of outfielder Alex Rios this weekend — if Rios can produce as he returns from a broken bone in his hand.

The cold spell limited Young’s margin for mistakes. He took the mound with a lead after Moustakas bashed a first-inning slider into the right-field seats. It was Kansas City’s lone lead of the series, and it only lasted into the second.

The Yankees had peppered Jeremy Guthrie on Monday with home runs into Yankee Stadium’s forgiving right-field porch. Young experienced a similar fate against catcher Brian McCann. After a series of sliders, McCann chased a chest-high fastball and displayed enough strength to muscle the pitch into the second deck.

“You just tip your cap,” Young said. “Smart, smart player. A great player. It’s one of those elements of competition where you don’t get frustrated. You laugh it off. You tip your cap and say, ‘He was better than me.’”

Another homer wobbled Young in the third. The inning began with a double by outfielder Brett Gardner and a four-pitch walk by third baseman Chase Headley. Young left a slider over the middle, and Alex Rodriguez lined a shot into left. Young had intended to dump the pitch down and away.

In most parks, the baseball might have collided with the fence. Here in the Bronx, it just cleared the wall 318 feet away for a three-run homer. In the process, Rodriguez became the all-time American League leader in RBIs, passing Lou Gehrig with No. 1,995.

“I didn’t execute one good pitch that I felt like might have changed the game,” Young said. “But that’s baseball. That’s the way it goes. A different day, maybe it’s a groundout. Maybe it’s taken. That’s just the way it goes. I’m not going to read into it too much.

“It’s unfortunate. I feel like I let the guys down. I wish I could have kept this game close, maybe give us a chance, put some pressure on the other pitcher. Maybe we would have been able to pull this out. But I let it get away right there.”

On most days, a three-run deficit is a manageable mountain for the Royals to scale. But they flailed at Pineda’s slider and failed to time his fastball. He dominated a group that crushed him less than two weeks.

In the aftermath, as the skid reached four, the Royals stressed calm. They have weathered far worse. Idle Thursday in Chicago, the players believe they can recharge and arrest their fall.

“The good thing is, the schedule helps us out a little bit,” Hosmer said. “We’ve got an off day. Sometimes there’s bad days for off days, sometimes there’s good days. This is definitely a good day for an off day.”

Yankees 4, Royals 2

This story was originally published May 27, 2015 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Reeling Royals drop fourth in a row, get swept by Yankees in 4-2 defeat."