Bullpen a factor again as Royals routed by home run-happy Mariners in return to The K
A Seattle Mariners lineup stocked with hitters capable of punishing mistakes and powering balls out of the most cavernous ballpark wasn’t a great match for a Royals’ pitching staff — particularly a bullpen — that has been struggling mightily to find consistency.
The Royals, coming off their first road series of the season, were ultimately just supporting characters in the show put on by the Mariners in the first game of their four-game set at Kauffman Stadium. The Mariners blasted their way to a 13-5 win in front of an announced 10,259 on Monday night as the Royals opened up a seven-game homestand.
The Mariners hit five home runs in the rout.
After wins in their first two games of the season at home, the Royals (2-7) have now lost seven in a row.
The lone measure of true consistency for the home club came in the form of Whit Merrifield extending his hitting streak to 29 games, putting him on the verge of tying Hall of Famer George Brett for the franchise record (30).
“I’m more concerned with where we’re at as a team right now than the streak,” Merrifield said. “Like I said before the game, I still feel like we’re a good team. We just haven’t quite figured out how to win yet at this point in the season, but it’s still early. We still feel good about our team and hope we can turn it around.”
An eight-run sixth inning, in which the Royals used four pitchers, sealed the game’s outcome. The Mariners (10-2) scored five runs before a second out was recorded. Edwin Encarnacion homered twice in the inning, the first coming on the first pitch of the inning and the second coming with two runners aboard and two outs.
Encarnacion became the first player with two home runs in an inning in the majors since Mark Trumbo did it for the Baltimore Orioles in the top of the seventh at the Texas Rangers on April 15, 2016. The most recent Mariners to pull off the accomplishment were Mike Cameron and Bret Boone, who each homered in the same inning, the first, at the Chicago White Sox on May 2, 2002.
Royals starter Homer Bailey (0-1) stuck around for the first three batters of the sixth, including Encarnacion’s first round-tripper. Bailey, who struck out seven, also gave up a walk and a single before Royals manager Ned Yost pulled him from the game. Bailey finished the night having allowed seven runs on eight hits and two walks.
Left-handed reliever Tim Hill got a batter to fly out and then got to two strikes on Dylan Moore, who’d homered off Bailey, before a pitch veered off course and into Moore to load the bases. After back-to-back singles, Hill’s night finished after one third of an inning.
“I thought he threw better than his line, a little bit, seven punch-outs,” Yost said. “The home run to Moore was actually exactly the pitch we wanted to execute and he did a nice job of hitting it out of the ballpark.
“The sixth inning kind of unraveled him there a little bit. We were hoping — he was at 90 pitches — we could get him through the sixth inning. … I think, all in all, there’s a lot of good signs from what we’re seeing from him.”
Kevin McCarthy took over and suffered similar results. He lasted a third of an inning and allowed three runs on three hits and a walk. He served up Encarnacion’s second home run of the inning.
McCarthy has now given up eight runs on 10 hits and four walks in 3 2/3 innings in six appearances this season.
“Just a tick off,” McCarthy said of his trouble with command. “Trying to go in on Encarnacion, leave it over the middle. Try to go away to (Mitch) Haniger, leave it over the middle ... It’s not good.”
Scott Barlow, who’d been a likely candidate to start on Wednesday, got the final out of the inning. Barlow couldn’t escape the night unscathed either. He allowed a solo home run to Jay Bruce in the eighth inning, Bruce’s sixth of the season, which pushed the Mariners’ lead to nine at 13-4.
The Mariners came into Monday’s game in the middle of a seven-game, nine-day road trip that included stops in Chicago and Kansas City. They brought maybe the hottest offense in the majors along with them.
They entered the day having scored 85 runs in 11 games, which made them the sixth team since 1961 to score at least 85 runs in the first 11 games of the season.
Mariners hitters entered the series leading the American League in batting average (.278) and slugging percentage (.550) while also ranking second in on-base percentage (.367).
“They’re really seeing the ball well, and I think their numbers indicate that,” Bailey said. “Nonetheless, I felt like our game plan was pretty solid — and it shows with some of the strikeouts — but if we’re not out there executing and doing our jobs then we’re going to have nights like that.”
Mariners starting pitcher Felix Hernandez, a former Cy Young Award winner and six-time All-Star, faced seven batters in the first inning. By the time the first out had been put in the books, the Royals had jumped on him for a 2-0 lead thanks to an RBI double by Adalberto Mondesi followed by and RBI single off the bat of Alex Gordon.
Hernandez left the game after one inning due to what the Mariners called “virus-like symptoms.” Hernandez allowed two runs on three hits and hit one batter in his only inning before he turned the game over to the Mariners’ bullpen.
Merrifield and Gordon had two hits apiece in the loss, while first baseman Ryan O’Hearn drew a pair of walks. Mondesi’s double snapped him out of an 0-for-14 slump, while Chris Owings stopped an 0-for-10 slide with an RBI single in the third inning.
This story was originally published April 8, 2019 at 10:42 PM.
