Salvador Perez seals Royals’ rally for a 4-3 walk-off win over the Mariners

The hood of a sweatshirt covered Danny Duffy’s shaved head as he strolled through the Royals clubhouse on Thursday, three hours before the left-hander would fire a 94-mph fastball for his first pitch. He walked toward an auxiliary port and plugged in his phone, taking over the music controls. As Justin Timberlake blared over the sound system, Duffy danced in his flip flops.

Blended together, it’s a pregame routine he used to build his energy. And he had it early.

The Royals lineup on Thursday found its energy late.

Duffy turned in his third straight quality start, and catcher Salvador Perez made it count with a two-run double in the bottom of the ninth that gave the Royals a 4-3 walk-off victory on Thursday at Kauffman Stadium.

Royals fans shower Salvador Perez with love after his game-winning hit 

Perez entered the game stuck in an 0-for-23 slump. He concluded it with his second career walk-off RBI, capping a three-run comeback that didn’t commence until the eighth inning.

“How many times have we been through it?” Duffy said. “We fight, and we fight, and don’t stop fighting. The ninth inning has been really good to us at home.”

As Perez’s double migrated to the center-field fence, Whit Merrifield and Jarrod Dyson jogged home, the scene of the conclusion of a four-game losing streak. The Royals, 44-41, topped three runs for the first time this week and moved within seven games of the first-place Indians.

Brooks Pounders was credited with his first major-league victory after throwing a scoreless ninth.

“A great moment in my life,” Pounders said.

Brooks Pounders gets first career win 

Mariners closer Steve Cishek took the loss. He spoiled an impressive start from Seattle starter James Paxton, the latest starting pitcher to silence the Royals bats.

Duffy countered with 6  1/3 innings and allowed two runs. He departed the mound after walking his first hitter since June 22, a span of 88 batters. He struck out seven.

The Royals managed four runs in his support — but all of them after he left the mound. Paulo Orlando ignited the comeback with a two-out, two-run single in the eighth to pull the Royals within one. Perez finished it off with a ninth-inning double that scored the final two.

That was the epilogue.

The prologue: Paxton preyed on the ultra-aggressive and slumping Royals lineup. He needed only 35 pitches to record his first 15 outs.

The double play helped sponsor his quick work. He induced four of them. His final line across eight innings included only two runs.

“Real cold, then real productive,” manager Ned Yost said of his Royals, later adding, “You look at games like this — we’ve talked about it — when your offense isn’t exactly perky in the way you want it to (be), a big hit will jump start it.”

Nearly three hours before his most stable pitcher took the mound Thursday, Yost was alternatively addressing his club's offensive irregularities. The answer, he quipped, was perhaps a return to Kauffman Stadium, where the Royals have scored 5.0 runs per game, almost two runs better than their road mark.

The solution came into play in the final two innings. It required two slump-busting doubles.

Merrifield opened the ninth with a double to left field — his first hit over his past 18 at-bats. The side-arm throwing Cishek plunked Kendrys Morales with a curveball before Morales made way for Dyson on the basepaths.

Two batters later, Perez drove a ball to the center-field track. He broke his hitting skid earlier in the game with a pair of line-drive singles to left field in his first three trips to the plate. He broke the losing skid in his last.

“I tried to see something out over the plate and hit the ball hard,” Perez said. “I hit it pretty good.”

He was one bright spot.

Duffy was another.

In a rotation that has lacked steadiness, a man who started the season as a bullpen option continued his emergence into a model most resembling consistency. He has allowed exactly two runs in three consecutive outings, all of them recorded as quality starts.

Mariners outfielder Daniel Robertson collected his first major league hit of the season in the second inning to give the Mariners a 1-0 lead. He stung Duffy again in the fifth, when he led off with a double over Alex Gordon’s head in left field before scoring two batters later.

Nelson Cruz supplied a moonshot in the eighth off Joakim Soria. It wasn’t enough insurance for the Mariners.

“I felt like I battled through a lot,” Duffy said. “I knew the whole time the boys were going to pick me up.”

All Star Royals Salvador Perez and Eric Hosmer ready for Midsummer Classic 

Royals 4, Mariners 3

This story was originally published July 7, 2016 at 10:21 PM with the headline "Salvador Perez seals Royals’ rally for a 4-3 walk-off win over the Mariners."