Royals bats come alive in 8-4 victory over Cubs

Lorenzo Cain gave himself Friday morning off. His body felt weary after two months of baseball, and his mind felt exhausted after a two-week slump. So he skipped his usual pregame routine of watching video. He eschewed reliving his own recent, feeble swings. He didn’t study footage of Cubs starter Jake Arrieta, a pitcher he had never faced.

“I just didn’t do anything today,” Cain said. “It’s weird. That’s how weird this game is.”

After several days of slumber, the Royals’ bats stirred to life in Friday’s 8-4 victory at Wrigley Field. Cain led the charge with three hits and two runs scored. The Royals snapped a four-game losing streak, weathered a rare misstep from reliever Kelvin Herrera and provided a bucket-list afternoon for the thousands of Kansas City partisans who descended onto the North Side.

After Cain swatted an RBI double to snap a seventh-inning deadlock, a series of “Let’s go, Royals” cheers resounded through the ballpark. Kansas City reveled in the unique atmosphere. The fans packed the bleachers from batting practice until the final pitch from closer Greg Holland.

“We needed to have this one today,” manager Ned Yost said. “We didn’t want to take it to five in a row.”

The Royals, 29-18, gave them much to celebrate. The team popped three home runs off Arrieta, a pitcher who had allowed just three in his nine other starts this season. The barrage from Alcides Escobar, Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez extended an early cushion to Edinson Volquez. Volquez notched a season-high nine strikeouts but later lamented they cost him chances for more efficient pitching as he gave up three runs in 5 2/3 innings.

Volquez finished an out shy of a quality start. One misplaced pitch cost him. The out would have been the last of the sixth. The pitch was a 95-mph fastball at the belt and Volquez’s 109th on the day. With the count at 3-0 to outfielder Jorge Soler, Volquez threw a heater on the hands. Soler’s two-run shot cut the Kansas City lead to one.

“I just made a mistake,” Volquez said. “I knew he was swinging, 3-0. I don’t know how he hit it out.”

The rest of the lead disappeared in the seventh. Herrera hung a change-up to rookie infielder Addison Russell, who tied the game with a solo shot into the bleachers. Yost defended Herrera’s pitch selection — Herrera had just blazed a 100-mph fastball for strike one — but lamented his execution.

“It was the right pitch,” Yost said. “It just wasn’t the right location.”

At this point, the Royals could have wobbled. They had managed just five runs in their previous five games. Instead, they rallied. Mike Moustakas opened the eighth with a walk against reliever Pedro Strop. Cain roped a double over center fielder Dexter Fowler’s head.

Moustakas tripped as he rounded second base, but he recovered to see third-base coach Mike Jirschele beckon him home. After the game, bench coach Don Wakamatsu joked that Moustakas was just “shifting gears.” Moustakas gritted his teeth, put down his head and lumbered across the plate ahead of the throw.

“I knew Jirsch was sending me,” Moustakas said, “so I had to get going.”

The hustle from Moustakas opened the door for a critical gaffe by Fowler that extended Kansas City’s lead. With two outs later in the seventh, Fowler dropped a fly ball off the bat of Omar Infante. One run scored. Then Fowler fell in the grass trying to pick up the ball. Another run scored, and the Royals tacked on another in the ninth as insurance.

On Friday the team visited Wrigley for the first time since 2001 and found the ballpark in the midst of renovations. Construction hammered outside. Two new scoreboards loomed in the outfield.

Yet the park retains its charms: the ivy on the walls, the curious smells emanating from lower-level corridors, the cramped visitors’ clubhouse. A few players shook their heads as they signed up in groups of three for trips to the undersized weight room on the other side of the stadium.

Once the game began, their fans ensured that the confines were friendly. Gordon joked that he felt like former Cubs superstar Sammy Sosa when an ovation greeted his arrival in the outfield. His teammates reported similar sensations.

“Our fans are amazing,” Moustakas said. “To have them out here at Wrigley was really unbelievable. We walked out there and they started ‘Let’s go, Royals’ chants. It was crazy.”

“It’s really cool,” said first baseman Eric Hosmer, who scored Cain with an RBI double in the fourth. “I think a lot of us were waiting for the opportunity to play at Wrigley Field. I think a lot of Royals fans were waiting for their team to play here. So it made for a fun day.”

The first pitch itself only heightened the volume. Arrieta opened with a 95-mph fastball at the thighs. Escobar pounced on it. His drive cleared the fence in left-center field for his second homer of the season, both of them of the leadoff variety.

“I knew I was getting a fastball on the first pitch of the game,” Escobar said. “I can hit that ball good. That’s why I hit a homer.”

Gordon provided another jolt in the second. Arrieta fired another sizzling fastball, this one at 96 mph and on the plate’s outer half. Gordon stayed back and powered it to left for an opposite-field shot. Perez added the team’s third homer in the fourth on a curveball at the shins.

The Cubs would roar back and the Royals would need to regroup. They survived a misstep from their bullpen, the backbone of their club. The offense delivered reinforcements. The losing streak would soon end.

“We bounced back today in a big way,” Cain said. “I don’t think you can keep this team down long.”

This story was originally published May 29, 2015 at 6:16 PM with the headline "Royals bats come alive in 8-4 victory over Cubs."