Royals hold on for 8-6 win over White Sox as Ian Kennedy gets his first save
Royals manager Ned Yost stated his stance as simply as he could during spring training. The organization felt like Ian Kennedy would make the bullpen better. Period. Case closed. Kennedy transitioned from starter to reliever in Arizona.
Kennedy entered the regular season having started 277 consecutive games since his most recent relief appearance in the majors. That run ended when Kennedy pitched the eighth inning of Thursday’s season opener, his first relief appearance in the big leagues since Sept. 23, 2009 (third of his career).
Two days after he ended that almost 10-year drought, Kennedy emerged from the bullpen in the ninth inning on Saturday and earned the first save of his professional career as the Royals registered an 8-6 win in front of an announced crowd 13,533 on a cold and windy day at Kauffman Stadium.
“I thought Wily (Peralta) was going to go in,” Kennedy said. “He was kind of warming up and then they called and wanted me to warm up. That’s when the adrenaline and nerves kicked up. But nerves go away pretty quickly once you got first and second. That’s when you know you can’t give up any more singles.”
Kennedy gave up a pair of singles to start the ninth inning, putting the tying runs on base and the go-ahead run at the plate before he’d gotten an out. He then got a fly-out to center, a strikeout and a fly-out to right field to end the game.
“Not that quick,” Kennedy said of expecting to be thrown into the closer’s role. “I don’t think we ever talked about roles. That’s why we started getting ready about the sixth inning. I have noticed in the bullpen that things go pretty quick. You have everyone trying to stay ready.”
Peralta, who converted 14 of 14 save opportunities last season, pitched 1/3 of an inning and allowed two runs on Thursday. Yost said he still liked both Kennedy and Peralta as options late out of the bullpen.
“I like them both,” Yost said. “I’ve got Wily for tomorrow if I need it. I like them absolutely both.”
With the win, the Royals clinched the victory in their three-game series. Last season, they didn’t win their first series until May 3-6 against the Detroit Tigers.
Jorge Soler and Billy Hamilton each had three hits for the Royals on Saturday. Soler drove in three runs, while Hamilton scored twice. Ryan O’Hearn also drove in a pair of runs in his first game of the season.
Adalberto Mondesi went 1 for 4 with a double, a run scored and a RBI. Soler and Mondesi became the first pair of teammates with three extra-base hits in the first two games of a season since Gerardo Parra and Trevor Story for the Colorado Rockies in 2016.
Royals starting pitcher Jakob Junis (1-0) pitched five scoreless innings as the Royals jumped out to a 4-0 lead, but he ran into trouble in the sixth.
A pair of singles sandwiched around a strikeout set the table for Jose Abreu’s first homer of the season, a three-run blast on a 1-1 pitch that carried into the bullpen behind the left-field wall which made it a one-run game, 4-3, in the sixth. Left-handed reliever Timmy Hill replaced Junis and got the final out of the inning.
“It didn’t come back over the plate, it just didn’t get in enough on him,” Junis said of the sinker Abreu hit. “We had thrown him a steady diet of those all day, so I think he was just looking for it then. We threw one too many and it cost me a dinger and three runs, but thankfully the offense came through.”
The Royals responded with a four-run bottom half of the inning, including a pair of runs before an out was recorded.
Martin Maldonado and Billy Hamilton started things off with back-to-back singles. Whit Merrifield created a three-run cushion with a two-run single to right field, which extended his hitting streak to 22 games dating back to last season. Soler added a two-run double to push his RBI total up to 5 in two games.
The 8-3 lead for the Royals proved fleeting as Royals reliever Brad Boxberger allowed three runs on two hits and a walk, including a two-out, two-run home run by Yoan Moncada on a 3-2 pitch as a five-run lead quickly shrunk to two.
Jake Diekman’s scoreless eighth inning set the stage for Kennedy in the ninth.
This story was originally published March 30, 2019 at 5:11 PM.
