Royals’ bats stay quiet in 4-1 loss to Orioles, KC’s fifth straight defeat

In the middle of a clubhouse on Mondayafternoon, Dan Duffy Sr. plopped down on a leather sofa and began to scan the face of his iPhone.

It was just past 4:30 p.m. here at Camden Yards, Salsa music blaring from the corner of the room. As the Royals prepared for a series opener against the Baltimore Orioles, Dan Duffy turned one eye toward his son, Danny, who was pacing about the room in a retro Kobe Bryant high school uniform, listening to music on his own phone.

In any other week of the season, in any other clubhouse, perhaps this scene would have seemed out of place, a father sitting in the room as his son prepared for a major-league start.

On Monday, as the Royals’ annual Fathers Road Trip hit another city, Dan Duffy ran the gamut of emotions with his son. From his seat in the lower level here at Camden Yards, he watched Danny open the game with six scoreless innings. He witnessed him tie a career high with nine strikeouts. And he watched in pain as Danny Duffy allowed two solo homers in the bottom of the seventh, the decisive runs in the Royals’ 4-1 loss in front of 14,878 fans here in Baltimore.

The left-handed Duffy allowed just two earned runs in 6 1/3 innings. He took the loss anyway as the Royals’ skid continued.

“It was electric tonight,” Danny Duffy said. “It felt really, really good. It’s a shame it went down like that.”

As the Royals arrived in Baltimore for a three-game set, the bats were silent again, squandering a terrific outing from Duffy, continuing another confounding streak of lifeless offense.

As a group of fathers watched in person, the Royals lost for the fifth straight night. Remember the white-hot offensive unit that carried the Royals to a six-game winning streak at Kauffman Stadium last week? It has all but disappeared during five days in Cleveland and Baltimore.

“You couldn’t have been any hotter than we were five days ago,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Now it’s hard to be much colder.”

For three days in Cleveland, the Royals were shut down by a trio of solid right-handed starters, managing just two runs against Danny Salazar, Josh Tomlin and Corey Kluber. On Monday, they were silenced by the right arm of a pitcher named Mike Wright, a 26-year-old with a 5.96 career ERA in just 93 2/3 career innings.

Yost called the five-game stretch a “quiet period”, another funk that has coincided with a road trip. AfterMonday’s loss, the Royals dropped to 11-20 away from Kauffman Stadium. They are averaging a paltry 3.35 runs per game in 31 road games.

After rolling to 13 victories in 16 games, the check for the injuries to left fielder Alex Gordon and third baseman Mike Moustakas appears to be coming due.

“You understand that you’re going to go through these things,” Yost said. “You want to try to break out of it sooner than later. But it’s not an issue that you’re gonna come in and say: ‘OK, today we’re going to break out of it.’

“It happens at its own pace and its own time. You just keep riding it until it breaks out.”

The Royals’ only run came on a bizarre error in the top of the seventh. With runners on first and second and one out, Jarrod Dyson hit a chopper into the hole at shortstop. Orioles shortstop Manny Machado slung the ball toward second base for the force out, but second baseman Jonathan Schoop spiked the relay throw into a sliding Cheslor Cuthbert.

The ball ricocheted directly off Cuthbert’s right elbow and bounced away, allowing Paulo Orlando to sprint home from third. It also left Cuthbert in serious pain on the infield dirt.

Schoop had tried to eat the throw after seeing Dyson sprinting toward first base. Cuthbert was diagnosed with a right elbow contusion but could be available to play on Tuesday. Yost said he’d never seen a play like it.

“The ball hit him kind of in the funny bone,” Yost said.”It hit him right in the back of the elbow here, and it just kind of shut down that nerve.”

For a moment, the Royals had a 1-0 lead. It melted away in the bottom of the seventh. When the inning began, Duffy’s pitch count had not yet reached 80 pitches. He had already shaken off a line drive from the bat of Mark Trumbo, which caught in him the left calf in the fourth inning. For stretches, his stuff appeared dominant.

In the seventh, Trumbo caught him again, tying the game with a solo shot, his 19th homer of the season. Moments later, Matt Wieters broke the deadlock with another blast, teeing off on a 95 mph fastball. Duffy said the Trumbo pitch hit the right spot. The Wieters’ pitch, he said, was his biggest mistake.

“I feel I made one bad pitch to Wieters,” Duffy said. “I didn’t think the pitch to Trumbo was a bad pitch. What can you do? You tip your hat to him.”

In his fifth start since joining the rotation, Duffy lowered his ERA to 3.35 for the season. In his last 25 innings, he has struck out 28 and walked just two. On Monday, he offered a solid start for a rotation that had crashed out in Cleveland. It made little difference. In the last four games, the Royals have mustered just two earned runs. As Yost sat in his office after the game, he tried to produce an encouraging tone.

“Our guys are really good at picking themselves up,” he said.

Orioles 4, Royals 1

E: Schoop (3). LOB: Kansas City 5, Baltimore 5. 2B: Merrifield (7), Jones (9). HR: Trumbo (19), off Duffy; Wieters (5), off Duffy; Machado (15), off Herrera. RBIs: Jones (30), Machado (36), Trumbo (44), Wieters (25). S: Jones. DP: Kansas City 1, Baltimore 1.

Holds: Brach (8). Time: 2:37. Att: 14,878.

This story was originally published June 6, 2016 at 9:01 PM with the headline "Royals’ bats stay quiet in 4-1 loss to Orioles, KC’s fifth straight defeat."