Royals blanked 4-0 by Indians, fall seven games behind in division race | The Kansas City Star

He had hurled three straight balls to Cleveland’s Francisco Lindor, his fastball missing in, and Royals starter Jason Vargas faced a predicament. There were few good options.

He had fallen behind Giovanny Urshela, surrendering a one-out single in the bottom of the fifth at Progressive Field. He did not wish to allow another base runner.

But then again, he could not risk offering Lindor something to hit. A 23-year-old switch-hitter, Lindor is on pace to become one of the greats of this generation, a defensive wonder with emerging power. In his young career, he had hit .308 with one homer in 3-0 counts. He had swung at those pitches more than 36 percent of the time.

“I had a good idea that he was swinging,” Vargas said.

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So there were no perfect options. Yet in a 4-0 loss to the Indians on Friday night, Vargas had to immediately regret what happened next. He fired an 86 mph fastball in toward the switch-hitting Lindor. The pitch stayed in the middle of the zone. Lindor unleashed a compact stroke and smashed a two-run blast into the seats in left field, 404 feet from home plate.

“I was trying to throw a fastball up to the top of the strike zone to get us a swinging pop-up,” Vargas said. “And I just threw it on the inner half belt-high on an angle I wasn’t looking for.”

The homer punctuated another frustrating night for Vargas, who has been unable to sustain his masterful form from the first half of the season. It spelled doom for the Royals on the first night of a three-game series that could represent the last gasps in an American League Central race.

As the day began on Friday, Kansas City was positioned six games behind the first-place Indians with 36 games remaining on the schedule. They finished the night at 64-63, seven games out and a game-and-a-half behind the Minnesota Twins in a crowded and ever-churning race for the second American League wild card.

In the final days of July, it seemed like the AL Central would hinge on the remaining series between the Royals and Indians, the last two teams to represent the American League in the World Series. Yet as the calendar pushes toward September, two remaining series against the Twins could turn into the season-defining games.

In the aftermath of another loss, as a team dropped back toward .500, it was easy to point to Vargas, who yielded four runs in five innings. He is now 2-5 with a 7.16 ERA in his last nine starts. He is not the same dominant force he was before the All-Star break. But that would obscure the performance of an offense silenced by Indians rookie left-hander Ryan Merritt.

“It was frustrating,” Royals second baseman Whit Merrifield said.

Perhaps you remember Merritt from his performance in last year’s American League Championship Series, when he offered 4  1/3 scoreless innings in an emergency start against the Toronto Blue Jays. But on Friday, he was joining the Indians rotation after Danny Salazar landed on the disabled list following a 7-4 loss last Sunday at Kauffman Stadium.

Merritt, 25, was making his fourth career regular-season start, spending most of the 2017 season at Class AAA Columbus. He took the ball and took control, scattering seven hits across 6  2/3 scoreless innings. The Royals were shut out for a major-league leading 11th time.

“He did a great job of spotting his fastball and then getting us out front on the change-up,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.

The Royals will face right-handed pitcher Mike Clevinger on Saturday and Carlos Carrasco on Sunday, two pitchers with a stronger pedigree than Merritt. With Vargas on the mound, that positioned Friday night as promising matchup.

The Royals could not break through against Merritt, whose fastball peaked around 86 mph while his change-up kept a lineup off balance. The Royals did not help themselves. Merrifield reached base on an error in the first, stole second and then was thrown out trying to advance to third on a ground ball to shortstop. It was the first out of the inning. Merrifield said he had not made such a base-running blunder in three to four years.

“I really don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “I thought maybe he was in the hole when he hit it. But it was right at Lindor, so it was just a poor read. It kind of set the tone for the game.”

Two innings later, Alex Gordon led off the Royals’ third with a double to left field — one of three hits on the day for Gordon. Moments later, Merrifield grounded out to short on the first pitch from Merritt, failing to advance Gordon to third.

These were small things. Some of the performance rested on big things. Third baseman Mike Moustakas was out of the lineup for the second straight day while battling a sore knee. The first three hitters in the lineup — Merrifield, Lorenzo Cain and Melky Cabrera — combined to go 0 for 12.

“I felt like I was seeing the ball well,” Merrifield said. “And everybody kind of had the same reaction when they came back in: Seeing it well. Feel like I’m putting a good swing on it. Just pounding it in the ground.”

As the offense scuffled, the Indians built a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third. The critical moment occurred on a deep drive to left from the bat of Urshela, the Indians’ third baseman, with one on and nobody out.

Gordon retreated to the warning track and jumped at the wall. But he could not hold on as the ball eluded his glove. Yan Gomes sprinted around and scored from first base. Urshela advanced to third on the throw and scored on a one-out single from Austin Jackson.

“That’s a tough play,” Yost said. “It would have been a great play.”

In moments, the Indians had a 2-0 lead. The Royals could not respond, falling to 6-7 against Cleveland this season. For another night, they played like something close to a .500 team. To make the playoffs for a third time in four years, they will have to be better.

Indians 4, Royals 0

Royals	AB	R	H	BI	W	K	Avg.
Merrifield 2b	4	0	0	0	0	0	.285
Cain cf	4	0	0	0	0	0	.290
Cabrera rf	4	0	0	0	0	0	.294
Hosmer 1b	4	0	2	0	0	0	.320
Perez c	4	0	1	0	0	1	.278
Bonifacio dh	4	0	1	0	0	1	.255
Escobar ss	4	0	1	0	0	1	.238
Cuthbert 3b	3	0	0	0	1	2	.223
Gordon lf	3	0	3	0	0	0	.204
Totals	34	0	8	0	1	5

Cleveland	AB	R	H	BI	W	K	Avg.
Lindor ss	4	1	2	2	0	0	.267
Jackson cf	4	0	1	1	0	1	.314
Zimmer cf	0	0	0	0	0	0	.246
Ramirez 2b	4	0	1	0	0	1	.299
Encarnacion dh	3	0	0	0	1	0	.247
Bruce rf	3	0	0	0	1	0	.265
Santana 1b	3	0	1	0	1	0	.251
Guyer lf	4	0	1	0	0	0	.226
Gomes c	4	1	2	0	0	1	.220
Urshela 3b	4	2	2	1	0	1	.217
Totals	33	4	10	4	3	4

Royals	000	000	000	—	0	8	1
Cleveland	002	020	00x	—	4	10	1

Royals	I	H	R	ER	W	K	P	ERA
Vargas L, 14-8	5	6	4	4	2	2	97	3.72
McCarthy	1.2	3	0	0	1	1	36	1.59
Buchter	1.1	1	0	0	0	1	22	3.35

Cleveland	I	H	R	ER	W	K	P	ERA
Merritt W, 1-0	6.2	7	0	0	1	3	97	1.76
Smith	1	0	0	0	0	0	9	3.25
Olson	0	1	0	0	0	0	5	0.00
Allen	1.1	0	0	0	0	2	17	3.00