Homers from Hosmer and Gordon, overruled call key Royals’ 6-3 win over Red Sox

On most nights, Bill Duplissea sits at a table in a back room of a baseball clubhouse, his eyes fixed on a collection of screens and monitors. Upon first glance, the setup looks sort of like a mall security guard, keeping a watchful eye on the premises.

But for these 2016 Royals, who suddenly find themselves thrust into another pennant race, Duplissea is more than just another pair of eyes. He is, in some respects, a secret weapon, the best replay coordinator in all of baseball.

You probably don’t hear about Duplissea all that much. A former minor-league catcher, Duplissea had a stint as the Royals’ bullpen catcher before moving on to advance scouting work. A few years ago, he took on the replay duties. He excelled immediately.

Duplissea — who goes by “Dup,” which is pronounced “Doop” — prefers to work in anonymity, to sit at his station in the clubhouse and search for the little edges. There is little glory in coordinating replay decisions.

But then there are moments like Friday night, the seventh inning of an eventual 6-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox. As reliever Chris Young protected a three-run lead, Boston right fielder Mookie Betts opened the inning with his fourth hit of the night. Moments later, on a 2-2 pitch, Young attempted a pickoff at first, and Betts dived back safely. And then Duplissea went to work.

“Billy saw it right away,” Royals manager Ned Yost would say.

The Kansas City dugout challenged the call. The umpires overruled the original decision. Duplissea and the Royals improved to 24 for 34 on replay reviews in 2016, the best percentage in all of baseball.

And so, on a night when the Royals did all the big things, blasting three homers and taking the opening game of a crucial series, they did the little things, too. Duplissea came up clutch once more.

“Dup is amazing at that,” Young said. “He’s the best I’ve seen.”

Just 24 hours after finishing off a series victory in Miami, The Royals, 67-61, arrived at Fenway Park and won for a 16th time in 19 games. Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon crushed homers over the Green Monster in the top of the first, producing a 5-0 lead against Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright, who was returning from the disabled list. Lorenzo Cain tacked on another homer in the eighth, his first blast in 191 at-bats.

The early onslaught aided Royals starting pitcher Ian Kennedy, who allowed two runs in 5  1/3 innings. The bullpen pieced together another 2  2/3 scoreless innings, extending the unit’s scoreless streak to 42  1/3 innings before reliever Peter Moylan allowed a run in the ninth.

Before it ended, it was the longest such in-season run in 50 years, according to Elias. The last bullpen to dominate like this? The 1966 Kansas City A’s, who tossed 44 straight scoreless innings.

Inside a joyous locker room, the Royals toasted the end of the streak.

“I think we all like that that streak ended,” Hosmer said. “Because it was a win and we don’t have to worry about it anymore. They’ve been the backbone of our team. We try to get leads and hand them off to them.”

On Friday, the Royals did just that. After another victory, their 11th in 12 games, the Royals sat just three games behind Baltimore in the competition for the second American League Wild Card spot. In a muddled race, with seven teams separated by 4  1/2 games, the defending world champions have emerged as a team to fear.

“That’s how it plays out,” Hosmer said. “It’s the team that can get hot at the end. And just carry that on throughout the playoffs.”

In some ways, this was an opportunistic victory. The Royals jumped on Wright before he could find a feel for his knuckleball. Boston’s first four hitters piled up eight hits in 11 at-bats in the first five innings, but Kennedy limited the damage to just one run before allowing a second in the sixth.

By the end, the Red Sox managed just three runs on 15 hits. How? Timely pitching by the Royals.

In the bottom of the first, Kennedy stranded the bases loaded by striking out Red Sox catcher Sandy Leon and Jackie Bradley Jr. on four-seam fastballs.

Kennedy would strand another runner in the second before finding himself in a tricky jam in the third. Boston’s David Ortiz opened the inning with a rule-book double and Betts followed with a single, putting men at the corners with nobody out. But once again, Kennedy buckled down, coaxing an infield pop-up from Hanley Ramirez and striking out Leon and Bradley for a second time.

With a 5-0 lead, Kennedy needed 91 pitches to navigate through the first four innings. He needed 100 to finish the fifth. But he left nine men on base over his 5  1/3 innings before Yost popped out of the dugout with one out in the sixth inning. Kennedy had thrown 107 pitches.

“(His) command was off just an inch,” Yost said. “He missed a lot of pitches by an inch, which resulted in a high pitch count. But still, he made great pitches when he needed to, to limit damage. And the bullpen took over from there.”

Yost signaled for Young, who allowed an RBI single to Dustin Pedroia before Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar made a terrific defensive play to record the second out of the inning.

The situation: Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts smashed a one-hopper toward Escobar, the baseball hitting 107 mph off the bat. Escobar, in one movement, picked the baseball back-handed and got Bogaerts at first. Moments later, Young then struck out Ortiz to end the threat.

One inning later, with relievers Matt Strahm and Joakim Soria unavailable, Young worked through another inning with some help from Duplissea. It was just one out, of course, one moment from another victory in a white-hot August. But it also appeared to come from nowhere. There was Duplissea, sitting at his station, and there was the replay that showed the runner out.

For a moment, Yost said, he didn’t think to challenge. At full speed, the runner appeared safe. And then he got word from bench coach Don Wakamatsu.

Duplissea wanted to challenge.

“When he said that, I perked up,” Yost said. “That was a huge out right there.”

Royals 6, Red Sox 3

This story was originally published August 26, 2016 at 9:38 PM with the headline "Homers from Hosmer and Gordon, overruled call key Royals’ 6-3 win over Red Sox."