Royals’ Jason Vargas shows he is human in 11-7 loss to the Yankees

In the moments after his last start, after his ERA had dipped to Gibsonian levels, Jason Vargas stood inside a visitors clubhouse at Tropicana Field and listened as a reporter offered a question.

For the previous two hours and change, Vargas, the Royals’ cunning left-hander, had neutralized the Tampa Bay Rays, throwing another seven scoreless innings, lowering his ERA to 1.01 and continuing the finest run of his career. For seven starts, Vargas had pitched like the best starter on the planet, an 86-mph throwing, change-up hurling ace who had been one of the surprises of baseball. In the aftermath, he was asked if he had set a goal of having an ERA in the 1.00s, a somewhat ludicrous question for a 34-year-old southpaw with a career ERA of 4.07.

Vargas did not treat the question as such, but he did offer a plainspoken dose of reality.

“I don’t necessarily know if I would set a goal for a 1.00 ERA,” he said. “It hasn’t been done very often in this sport.”

At some point, of course, the results were going to tilt back the other way. Reality would snap back toward historical norms. Vargas would no longer be Sandy Koufax. He understood this. But perhaps he did not expect the statistical correction to be this harsh.

On Wednesday, in a 11-7 loss to the New York Yankees, Vargas surrendered six earned runs in four innings, including five with two outs during a disastrous fourth inning. In a span of 10 hitters, Vargas was gashed for five hits and two walks. He needed 49 pitches to weather the damage. When the inning was over, the Royals trailed 6-0, Vargas’ ERA had doubled to 2.03, and the Yankees were poised to deliver a beating for a second straight night at Kauffman Stadium.

That Vargas still finished the night with one of the top 10 ERAs in baseball could not provide too much consolation, he said.

“In the long run, yeah, probably,” he said, answering a question about moving past the hiccup. “But the only game that really mattered was tonight and getting us back in the winner’s category, and get us moving back in the right direction.

“It’s never easy to swallow to not get out of an inning when you know you had chances to get out of that inning.”

One night after absorbing a 7-1 loss, the Royals’ starting pitching skidded and careened into a ditch once again. Vargas dropped to 5-2 on the season while throwing 91 pitches in four innings. His elevated pitch count and heavy workload in the fourth forced Royals manager Ned Yost to turn to his bullpen. Reliever Peter Moylan was pinched for four runs in the fifth. The floodgates opened. The Royals (16-23) must win here on Thursday night to avoid a three-game sweep.

“Normally, Vargy is not going to run into a situation where he’s going to throw 49 pitches in the fourth inning and we’ve got to find five innings of relief in there,” Yost said. “Vargy, for the most part, is going to give you a good five, six or seven innings, even on nights when he’s not sharp. It was just one of those nights.”

As the Yankees’ offense pounded out 11 runs and 16 hits, piling up 29 hits across two days, the Royals were held in check by Yankees starter Michael Pineda.

Salvador Perez crushed his eighth homer, a two-run blast, into the fountains in left field in the bottom of the fourth inning. Whit Merrifield hit a towering solo shot in the fifth, his fourth of the season. The homers traveled 445 feet and 430 feet, respectively. Yet they accounted for just three runs and the bulk of the Royals’ early attack. Pineda allowed four runs in six innings before departing after facing two batters in the seventh.

“He really had his change-up working tonight,” Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “He’s always had good cut on his fastball, good slider, and he had his change-up really working as well.”

The Yankees, rejuvenated by a young core, a high-octane offense and a resurgent pitching staff, remained in first place in the American League East, moving to 24-13, 1  1/2 games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles. The Royals, of course, had begun the home stand by engineering a sweep of the Orioles, climbing within five games of .500. But after two games against the Yankees, they have ceded some of that hard-fought ground.

On Wednesday, the problems began when Yankees second baseman Starlin Castro saw a first-pitch fastball and hammered a double off the right-field wall in the top of the first. Vargas settled in and recorded scoreless innings in the second and third before getting two outs in the fourth. And then the bottom fell out.

New York shortstop Didi Gregorius delivered an RBI single to right field, punishing a 2-2 curveball that stayed up in the zone. And moments later, with two men on, Aaron Hicks whacked a 2-2 change-up down the line into the seats in left field. The three-run blast put the Yankees ahead 5-0.

All season long, Vargas’ change-up had been his most potent weapon, delivering swings and misses by the dozen. For one moment, it failed him. For Vargas, though, the key at-bat had come against Gregorius.

“I think that was probably the key turning point for them,” Vargas said. “Obviously, the home run extended the (inning) for them and put us in a hole. But the at-bat by Gregorius, I thought, was key for us to keep the game competitive and to be able to get deeper into the game.”

From there, the Royals were forced to play from behind. Center fielder Lorenzo Cain left the game early as a precaution after landing awkwardly on his wrist during a play in center field. The offense would come up with three runs in the bottom of the ninth, forcing the Yankees to go to closer Dellin Betances. On the whole, though, they lacked the firepower to keep pace.

“It was just one of those nights,” Yost said. “(Vargas) was facing a hot-hitting team and they didn’t miss a mistake.”

Yankees 11, Royals 7

This story was originally published May 17, 2017 at 10:39 PM with the headline "Royals’ Jason Vargas shows he is human in 11-7 loss to the Yankees."