Royals rally late, beat the Angels 4-3 in 10 innings

The man treats these moments as if they are his stage, and his stage alone: Two on. Two out. A baseball game on the line? The Kansas City Royals could do worse than turn to Kendrys Morales.

In the final at-bat of a 4-3 victory in 10 innings over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Morales does did what he has done more than any other Royal this season: He drove in a run. It took a single to left field off Los Angeles reliever Trevor Gott. Ben Zobrist raced home from second base to complete the comeback. The team mobbed Morales in the infield.

“He knows situations,” manager Ned Yost said afterward of Morales. “He’s really, really smart. He knows what he needs to do to try to get the job done. He wasn’t trying to do too much. He wasn’t trying to rip a homer. He wasn’t trying to hit a gap. He was just trying to stay nice and smooth.”

The Royals (71-46) had tied the game in the previous inning. Now, they walked off, joyous, to complete a 10-game homestand filled with eight victories. Kansas City took three of four games from the Angels this weekend, and Sunday night Morales provided the winning stroke against his former club.

Morales has been a sturdy, consistent contributor for the Kansas City offense. He rebounded from a miserable 2014 season to become the team’s most consistent run producer. He leads all major-league hitters with 42 two-out RBIs.

“He feels good in those type of situations,” said Royals catching coach Pedro Grifol, who translated for Morales. “He’s full-concentration, and he’s looking for a good pitch to hit.”

The Royals did not collect a hit from the second inning through the ninth, but they still managed to rally after Wade Davis gave up a solo homer in a tied game in the eighth.

In the bottom of the ninth, Kansas City benefited from the inaccuracy of Angels closer Huston Street. Street issued a leadoff walk to Eric Hosmer then intentionally walked Mike Moustakas to face catcher Drew Butera, who was batting in place of the ejected Salvador Perez. Butera walked, Alex Rios hit a sacrifice fly, and the Royals tied the game.

They nearly won it in the next at-bat. Paulo Orlando lashed a drive into the right-center gap. He raised his arms as he ran down the line, sure that the ball would fall for a hit. Instead, Angels superstar center fielder Mike Trout ripped the ball out of the sky, tumbling into the grass as he did, ushering this game into extra innings.

“That was a phenomenal play,” Yost said. “I mean, Paulo hit that ball as hard as you can hit it into that gap.”

The night nearly grated on the Royals. Davis paid for a hanging curveball to Angels outfielder Kole Calhoun in the eighth. Before he faced the Toronto Blue Jays on Aug. 1, Davis had not given up a home run since Aug. 24, 2013. Now, he has given up two in his last four appearances.

Right before the homer, Davis threw a curveball in the dirt. His instinct told him to throw a cutter, but Butera called for a curveball, and Davis agreed. He would blame himself later for not listening to his gut.

“That’s something I haven’t done in a long time,” Davis said. “Throw a pitch that I didn’t want to throw.”

Perez’s ejection had brought Butera into the game. An inning earlier, Perez argued with umpire Quinn Wolcott, annoyed at Wolcott’s calling of balls and strikes, and received the first ejection of his career.

The offense lay fallow after the first inning, and the team nearly wasted a seven-inning, two-run effort from Yordano Ventura. Ventura gave up two runs in the sixth, unable to hold an early advantage, but he struck out seven. He built off his previous outing, when he strung together six scoreless innings.

“He’s feeling very confident,” said Jeremy Guthrie, who translated for Ventura. “He feels a lot of support from his teammates, and that’s just helping him go out there and continue to get better.”

A national TV audience was watching. ESPN chose to feature this contest for “Sunday Night Baseball.” The Royals treated it as if it were any other evening. Yost declared batting practice optional, as he had for most of the previous week, in hopes of saving his team’s energy for October.

These last 10 days provided an instructive course of the Royals’ plans for the final seven weeks of the regular season. Yost has managed as if there were a tomorrow, conservatively using his bullpen and resting his regulars. And yet the team continues to win — in almost every game, they are the most talented team on the field.

That reality held during these 10 games against the Chicago White Sox, the Detroit Tigers and the Angels. The two losses felt like flukes. Yost declined to remove Edinson Volquez at a perilous juncture against Detroit, operating in a passive fashion that would seem inconceivable in the playoffs. Davis and Greg Holland combusted a night later and wasted a four-run lead.

On Sunday, both teams fought Wolcott’s strike zone. It was not the best weekend for him. Three of his calls in the field were overturned on replay review before Sunday’s game even began. Then both clubs suffered from balls that were called strikes, and vice versa.

The inconsistency led Perez to argue with Wolcott after a strikeout in the seventh. Yost ran out to break up the conversation, but he arrived moments too late. Wolcott tossed Perez, who later said he merely was asking for the location of the offending pitch, a fastball around his ankles.

“I didn’t say one bad word to the guy,” Perez said, adding, “I don’t know what happened with that guy tonight, but I’ve known that guy for a long time, and he does a tremendous job behind home plate. Seriously, I don’t know what happened.”

The first inning presented a rematch between Ventura and Trout, the reigning American League MVP. In April, Ventura jawed with Trout during a game at Angels Stadium, which served as a prologue for Ventura’s bizarre, early-season foray into ill-tempered outbursts and ill-timed suspensions.

Their return encounter produced no histrionics. Ventura retired Trout on two pitches in the first inning. Trout flied out to right field. When the two tangled again in the fourth, the Royals led by two.

Kansas City produced a first-inning rally in typical fashion. Alcides Escobar smacked Hector Santiago’s first pitch of the night for a single. Zobrist stung a liner to left field. Out there stood former Royal David DeJesus, who misjudged the ball’s flight. The RBI double cleared his head.

Zobrist moved to third on a grounder by Lorenzo Cain. Angels manager Mike Scioscia shifted his infielders closer to the plate, looking to smother any grounders and prevent the second run. Instead, Hosmer rolled a single past shortstop Erick Aybar. Hosmer drove in a run in his 10th consecutive game, which is the longest such streak in the majors this season.

Handed a lead, Ventura cruised until the sixth. He allowed only two hits in his first four frames. DeJesus doubled in the third inning and took third on a passed ball. Ventura responded by striking out catcher Chris Iannetta with a 99-mph fastball. He picked up a grounder off the bat of another former Royal, Johnny Giavotella, to end the inning.

Ventura defused another threat two innings later. He gave up a leadoff single to Aybar. He walked Iannetta two batters later. Up came Giavotella once again. Giavotella could only produce a grounder to second base, unable to drive another 99-mph heater from Ventura.

But Ventura stumbled in the sixth. Calhoun smashed a leadoff triple. Trout had a chance to drive in Calhoun, but Ventura took care of that for him. He bounced a cutter in the wrong batter’s box, and Calhoun scored on the wild pitch.

Ventura did not fold. He composed himself in time to stun Trout with a curveball, who stared at the bender for the third strike. A ground out by first baseman Albert Pujols left Ventura one out away from retaining the lead.

It was not to be. David Murphy drove a hanging change-up into the right-field seats to tie the game.

“He was trying to go low and away with it, and he left it up,” Guthrie said. “That’s what happens at this level. If you leave it up, they can hit it for a home run.”

Calhoun pulled the Angels ahead in the eighth. The Royals answered in the ninth. In the last inning, Zobrist singled off Gott to reach base for the third time on the night. Hosmer walked two batters later.

Morales came to the plate. Scioscia allowed Gott to pitch to Morales. Gott spotted a change-up on the outside part of the plate, but high enough to entice a swing. Morales shot the ball into left and incited a mob scene after Kansas City’s eighth victory in 10 games.

“Kendrys comes up big in those situations,” Yost said. “He did again tonight.”

Royals 4, Angels 3, 10 innings

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Two outs when winning run scored. 1-ran for Moustakas in the 9th.

E: Gillaspie (14). LOB: Los Angeles 4, Kansas City 8. 2B: DeJesus (9), Zobrist (23). 3B: Calhoun (2). HR: Dav.Murphy (7), off Ventura; Calhoun (17), off W.Davis. RBIs: Calhoun (63), Dav.Murphy (34), Zobrist (43), Hosmer (71), K.Morales (83), Rios (21). SF: Rios.

Runners left in scoring position: Los Angeles 2 (Giavotella 2); Kansas City 2 (Moustakas, Orlando). RISP: Los Angeles 0 for 3; Kansas City 2 for 6. Runners moved up: L.Cain, K.Morales. GIDP: K.Morales. DP: Los Angeles 1 (Santiago, Giavotella, Pujols).

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Hold: J.Smith (25). Blown save: Street (4). IW: off Street (Moustakas), off Santiago (K.Morales). WP: Ventura. PB: S.Perez.

Umpires: Home, Quinn Wolcott; First, Gary Cederstrom; Second, Tom Woodring; Third, Lance Barksdale. Time: 3:12. Att: 36,845.

This story was originally published August 16, 2015 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Royals rally late, beat the Angels 4-3 in 10 innings."