Orioles pound Royals, but Jorge Soler ties HR record, and Alex Gordon pitches again
The makings of a new era in Kansas City’s baseball history commenced Friday, with Royals owner David Glass announcing an agreement to sell his franchise after a two-decade run. With league approval unlikely to come before November, the new chapter will wait until 2020.
In the meantime, the long, grueling season of 2019 carries on.
The Baltimore Orioles pounded Royals starter Eric Skoglund and then the bullpen on their way to a 14-2 victory to open a three-game series Friday at Kauffman Stadium.
The Royals (47-89) began the game with Jorge Soler matching the club’s home-run record but concluded it with outfielder Alex Gordon pitching for the second time this week, his entrance the product of bad pitching and not much better defense. (Gordon allowed two runs in the ninth inning.)
Soler tied the franchise’s single-season home-run record, held by Mike Moustakas, in the first inning and came within a foot of setting the new mark in his final at-bat in the eighth inning.
Eventful start. Eventful finish.
All Orioles in between.
“I hate those games like that. I hate them,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “But they happen. It’s not from a lack of effort. We just had a bad night. It wasn’t one phase — it was all the phases of our game, outside of Soler. That was the only positive thing that we did all night long.”
Two hours before the game, the Royals announced Glass had reached an agreement to sell the team to Kansas City businessman John Sherman, a deal that will require approval from the league’s owners, who next meet in Dallas in November.
And three pitches into the bottom of the first, Soler lined a pitch into the left-field seats. His 38th home run of the season tied Moustakas, who reached the same number in 2017 and on the way broke a record that had stood for 35 years.
Moustakas’ reign as the record-holder will apparently be much shorter. Health pending, Soler will have a month to set a new mark and become the first Royals player to reach 40 in a season. In the fifth, Soler sent a towering fly ball to the warning track. In the eighth, his line drive hit the top of the wall.
“I feel good about it. I tied the record,” Soler said through a translator. “We lost, so that wasn’t good, but I was able to tie the all-time record here.”
Soler was a one-man show. In the other dugout, there were plenty of offensive producers. Baltimore (45-89) collected 21 hits and chased Skoglund after only four innings; the Royals defense didn’t help the cause; and Baltimore left-handed starter John Means picked up a victory in his hometown stadium. Means is a native of Gardner, Kansas.
Despite giving up the early Soler home run, Means allowed only two runs on five hits. He needed just 74 pitches to complete seven innings and pick up his 10th victory of the season.
He was a high school teammate of Royals outfielder Bubba Starling at Gardner. Means’ family and friends occupied a suite inside Kauffman Stadium on Friday.
The Orioles jumped all over Skoglund early. They produced a five-run third inning after one in the second. Right fielder Anthony Santander hit a ball 417 feet into the left-center field seats, a three-run jack to give Baltimore its first lead and the only one it needed.
Skoglund’s second start of the season spanned four innings. He allowed six runs on nine hits and three walks. A defensive blunder didn’t help. The Orioles’ DJ Stewart popped a ball into short right field that fell between three fielders standing still, with Starling and Whit Merrifield both appearing to lose the ball in the stadium lights.
“I was just missing middle and up,” Skoglund said of his start. “And I was getting behind in the count. And these guys are going to take advantage of that.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 10:33 PM.