One pitch keyed the Royals’ loss, despite their best comeback effort

The stint lasted 38 pitches before Royals right-hander Jakob Junis finally set himself free, but its consequences traced to just one. From 60 feet, 6 inches away, the baseball left his right hand with a slider’s grip, statistically one of the top out pitches in the league.

But in this instance, it traveled all of about 55 feet.

As the ball planted into the dirt in front of home plate, the last of a nine-pitch walk to force in a run, Royals manager Ned Yost slapped a piece of paper onto the dugout railing in frustration, perhaps aware of what waited on the horizon.

The Indians broke the game open with a five-run third inning, beating the Royals 9-5 on Tuesday night in the opening game of the last series at Kauffman Stadium before the All-Star break.

“It was just a grind,” Junis said. “I threw a lot more pitches than I hoped for. A lot of foul balls, a lot of long at-bats. It’s just going to happen sometimes, I guess.”

The Royals (29-57) manifested a comeback attempted that ultimately fell incomplete, recovering from a six-run deficit to pull the go-ahead run to the plate in the seventh inning.

For naught.

Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler laced a pair of line drives for the final two outs of the inning, stranding a pair on base. Both outs were hit better than 100 mph, according to Statcast.

“Smoked them. Both of them,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Doz with a bullet line drive and Soler with a bullet line drive to centerfield. We just couldn’t catch a break there.”

Adalberto Mondesi homered in his return from the injured list, and Soler blasted team-leading No. 23, but Junis departed before the end of the fifth inning, seven runs charged to his name, six of them earned.

The destruction came in the third, much of it self-inflicted. See the Jason Kipnis plate appearance. With the bases loaded and one out, Junis worked ahead in the count 0-2. But seven pitches later, including three foul balls that nearly ended the appearance, Junis offered Kipnis a free base and Cleveland a free run. They swiped four more before the inning concluded. Junis needed 38 pitches to record three outs.

“They just fouled a lot of pitches off and really got his pitch count up,” Yost said. “That third inning was a 38-pitch inning. They just kept fouling off balls, fouling off balls.”

In all, Junis threw 108 pitches, giving up six hits and walking two. Only one hit produced extra bases — a Jake Bauers double that scored two — but the inning included back-to-back walks and an error.

The Royals cut a 7-1 fifth-inning deficit to 7-5 in the seventh inning, with hits from Martin Maldonado, Billy Hamilton, Whit Merrifield and Alex Gordon. Two runners occupied the bases when Dozier and Soler lined out to end the threat there.

The comeback notion started in the fifth, with Mondesi’s two-run skied home run into right, the Royals’ second bomb of the evening. Earlier, Soler visited the top shelf of the left-field fountains, his 23rd home run of the season arriving on a solo shot in the second inning.

Trevor Bauer, who gave the Royals fits just last week, picked up the win on the mound, but he allowed 11 hits and five earned.

“For me, it was just swinging at good pitches,” Dozier said. “The last time I faced him, I was swinging at pitches out of the zone. So my plan was just to see him in the zone.”

Dozier led off the sixth inning with the Royals’ 27th triple of 2019, but he was thrown out trying to stretch an extra base out of an errant throw. The aggression cost the Royals a run after Soler singled in the next at-bat.

“It was all reaction,” Dozier said, adding. “Stupid play by me. I’ve got to look at the scoreboard and understand the situation. If I stay at third, Soler gets me home.”

This story was originally published July 2, 2019 at 10:51 PM.