Royals stumble again in 4-0 loss to the Houston Astros

The baseball soared toward the center-field wall, and Lorenzo Cain gave chase. This winter the Astros will raze Tal’s Hill, a construction quirk from another era, a landmass beyond the warning track that slopes 30 degrees upward, but on Tuesday the hill loomed as Cain tried to track down a fourth-inning drive off the bat of Astros slugger Evan Gattis.

What followed created a fitting image for this series: The battered, weary Royals stumbling into the unforgiving confines of Minute Maid Park and falling once more to Houston, this time a 4-0 defeat.

Cain stretched his glove, but the baseball eluded him by inches. He pumped his legs “as high as possible,” he said, but they buckled on his third step. Cain crashed shoulder-first into the wall. He righted himself to grab the baseball and fling it back toward the parts of the stadium not marked by architectural abnormalities.

Then Cain flopped onto his face, conquered by this peculiar park and the players who call it home.

“At the end of the day,” Cain said. “The Hill won.”

Cain disregarded his sore left hamstring as he strained in vain. The feat still impressed manager Ned Yost, who has watched the incline trip outfielders for about a decade.

“Any time I see anybody go up the hill, they take a nose dive on the first step,” Yost said. “Lo took a nose dive on the third step. It shows you how great an outfielder he is.”

Gattis arrived at third base with a triple. He scored soon after when the Royals’ Danny Duffy uncorked a wild pitch, part of a Jekyll-and-Hyde evening from a starter cursed by that duality this season. The actual outcome would not arrive for five more innings, but the Royals once more resided in a hole from which they could not emerge.

Unable to mount an offensive against Astros starter Dallas Keuchel, Kansas City folded for the second time in as many nights. The Royals, 44-30, can still boast a record touting their supremacy in the American League. But the upstart Astros, led by Lance McCullers on Monday and eight scoreless innings from Keuchel on Tuesday, have trounced their guests in these first two games. “They’re a formidable team,” Yost said.

Duffy, 2-4 with a 5.44 ERA, interspersed madness with brilliance. He struck out six and maintained a rhythm unavailable to him during the season’s first two months. He also let a home run rattle off a foul pole. In a moment of crisis, after Gattis’ triple, his wildness deepened Kansas City’s deficit. Duffy departed after giving up four runs on six hits and two walks.

Earlier in the week, Ned Yost voted for Keuchel to make the All-Star team. Yost is still deciding who should start the game, with the competition down to Keuchel, White Sox ace Chris Sale, Tampa Bay right-hander Chris Archer and Oakland right-hander Sonny Gray. Keuchel entered the day leading the American League in innings and he trailed only Gray with a 2.17 ERA.

The Royals understood the chances to sully Keuchel would be limited. An unfortunate hop cost Kansas City a run in the first inning. Cain legged out a two-out, infield single. Nursing his hamstring, he trotted about halfway to the foul pole to arrive at a gentle stop.

The next pitch from Keuchel was an 89-mph fastball out and over the plate. Kendrys Morales poked it to right field for an extra-base hit. But the baseball hopped the fence, a ground-run double, and Cain braked at third. Salvador Perez grounded out to first base to strand both runners.

The Astros jumped to an early lead. Duffy cut a brisk pace through the first two innings, collecting six outs in only 24 pitches. But with two outs in the third, Duffy hung a slider to infielder Marwin Gonzalez, the No. 9 hitter. Gonzalez smacked a single.

“I tried to throw it really hard and make it really tight, but it just floated in there,” Duffy said. “I think that may have took me out of the next at-bat, who was, in my opinion, the best hitter on their team.”

The hit turned Houston’s lineup over, and gave slugging center fielder George Springer his second crack at Duffy. Springer tormented Kansas City during a series last May, and he reprised his role on Tuesday. Duffy threw three balls to start the encounter, which forced him to battle back with fastballs. Springer mashed the fifth heater of the at-bat off the left-field pole.

An inning later, Gattis lashed his triple with only one out. The count ran full against first baseman Chris Carter. Duffy lost the grip on a slider. The pitch soared over the head of backup catcher Drew Butera. Gattis galloped home for the third Houston run.

“It slipped out of my hands,” Duffy said. “But that’s not an excuse.”

By now, the lead felt comfortable. Keuchel gave up doubles to Cain in the third and again in the sixth. Each time, Cain trotted at a reduced pace. Each time he did not advance to third base. After the first inning, Kansas City could not place a runner there against Keuchel.

“He utilized both sides of the plate really effectively,” Yost said. “He’d get us looking away, and then he’d start pounding us in. We couldn’t pick up any patterns. We couldn’t gauge him. He was changing speeds. He really did a great job of keeping the ball down. He didn’t give us anything up in the zone we could do damage on.”

The Astros keep swinging. Springer opened the fourth with a walk. Jose Altuve, the prime candidate to let the American League avoid the awkwardness of Omar Infante in the All-Star Game, bashed an RBI double. Duffy recovered to give his team a lengthy outing. But the offense never aided his cause, and the Astros reigned again.

“At the end of the day, I just got beat,” Duffy said. “But it wasn’t from lack of effort, or focus.”

Cain limped through the clubhouse with a stim machine hooked to his leg. He carried two cans of grape Fanta to his locker as he packed up for the day. He will play designated hitter in Wednesday’s series finale. Unless, of course, these teams clash in October, Cain will never have to worry about Tal’s Hill again.

“The Hill,” Cain said, “it got me.”

Astros 4, Royals 0

LOB: Kansas City 7, Houston 3. 2B: Cain 2 (15), Morales (20), Altuve (15). 3B: Gattis (4). HR: Springer (13), off Duffy. RBIs: Springer 2 (29), Altuve (32).

Runners left in scoring position: Kansas City 5 (Perez 3, Morales, Cain); Houston 2 (Tucker, Gattis). RISP: Kansas City 0 for 5; Houston 0 for 4. Runners moved up: Moustakas. GIDP: Escobar, Do.Santana. DP: Kansas City 1 (Infante, Escobar, Morales); Houston 1 (Ma.Gonzalez, Altuve, Carter).

TableStyle: SP-basepitchersCCI Template: SP-basepitchers

WP: Duffy.

Umpires: Home, Jordan Baker; First, Paul Emmel; Second, Jerry Meals; Third, Andy Fletcher. Time: 2:14. Att: 24,642.

This story was originally published June 30, 2015 at 9:29 PM with the headline "Royals stumble again in 4-0 loss to the Houston Astros."