Moustakas finally returns to KC, but Keller’s dominance helps Royals shut out his Reds
The absence of fans in the stands figured to steal a great deal of the thunder from Mike Moustakas’ return to Kansas City.
The thief actually turned out to be Royals right-handed pitcher Brad Keller.
Keller flirted with a no-hitter in an abbreviated seven-inning game and relegated the entire Cincinnati Reds’ lineup, Moustakas included, to a footnote as the Royals won 4-0 in the first half of Wednesday doubleheader at Kauffman Stadium.
Keller extended his streak of scoreless innings to 17 2/3 to start this season, though Moustakas did have one of the three hits he allowed in the game.
Keller (3-0) held the Reds hitless through five innings as Cincinnati batters repeatedly beat the ball into the dirt. Of the first 11 outs recorded on balls in play against Keller, eight were grounders.
“He was special,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I think he got into a rhythm where his breaking ball was just as good as his fastball was. He had his fastball going towards both sides of the plate. He had it cutting at times. He had good sink when he needed. He got his double plays. Guys played well behind him, (Adalberto Mondesi) with a couple really nice plays. And he wasn’t afraid to even go to that changeup.”
Whit Merrifield and Jorge Soler had two hits apiece, while Ryan O’Hearn drove in two runs. Soler snapped out of a funk that included going 3 for 23 on the club’s recent road trip.
Keller pitched 6 2/3 innings, striking out five in the first five and walking three. He issued a walk to start the seventh but quickly got a double play to wipe it away. After Keller gave up back-to-back hits to Moustakas and Shogo Akiyama, Matheny brought in reliever Trevor Rosenthal to close the door.
The Reds (9-12) loaded up their lineup with six left-handed hitters, save for switch-hitter Freddy Galvis, against Keller. Entering the day, lefties had a .348 on-base percentage against Keller compared to a .158 OBP for right-handed hitters.
“Obviously it’s pretty glaring when you see all lefties in there,” Keller said. “I knew I had to rely on my four-seam and slider today. ... It was good stuff to work on. I had to kind of control the inside part and up, too. It was a little bit of a challenge, no doubt. But I liked it and I enjoyed it.”
The Royals showed a video montage of Moustakas’ highlights from his time with the club on the Crown Vision video board before the playing of the national anthem.
While no fans were in attendance, Moustakas did receive a round of applause from both the Royals’ and Reds’ dugouts. “Moose,” as he’s known in Kansas City, is in the first year of a four-year deal with the Reds after having been an All-Star with the Milwaukee Brewers last season.
The No. 2 overall pick in the 2007 MLB Draft, Moustakas debuted with the Royals in June 2011. He was one of the homegrown stars of the Royals’ back-to-back World Series appearances in 2014 and 2015. In eight big-league seasons with the Royals, he posted a slash line of .251/.306/.430 with 139 home runs and 441 RBIs in 934 games.
He held the franchise’s single-season home run record until Soler broke it last season with an AL-best 48.
“It’s really cool to come back to a place that meant so much to me and my family, and a place that I meant so much to the people here and the fans and the city,” Moustakas said before the game. “Like we said back in ‘14 and ‘15, it wasn’t just us. It was this entire city, and we felt that love every time we stepped onto that field.
“To be able to come back to a place that meant so much to me and my family, and be here and see (general manager) Dayton (Moore) and (executive assistant to the GM) Emily (Penning) and (scouting director) Lonnie (Goldberg) and (assistant general manager Scott) Sharp and everybody that I spent most of my professional career with — I think I was in this organization for 11 or 12 years — it means a lot to see how much I mean to them and how much they mean to me.”
Royals newcomer Matt Harvey, the former New York Mets ace, said Moustakas was one of the people who gave him a glowing recommendation of the KC organization before he signed here this summer.
The Royals played the Reds last week in Cincinnati, but Moustakas was on the injured list with a quad injury at the time. He and former Royals teammate Salvador Perez shared an exchange going into the ninth inning of the final game of that series.
Perez did not play on Wednesday. A fluid build-up has caused blurred vision in his left eye. He’s seen a pair of eye specialists and his status is day-to-day.
Once Wednesday’s game began, the Royals scored three first-inning runs, including one unearned after Merrifield reached on an error by first baseman Joey Votto. Soler’s RBI double down the left-field line drove in the first run, and O’Hearn snapped an 0-for-10 stretch with a two-run single to make it 3-0.
The Royals added a run in the fourth after Mondesi reached on an infield single, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored when Merrifield blistered one past second baseman Josh VanMeter with the infield playing in.
The Reds first hit came on Tucker Barnhart’s looping line-drive single into center field to start the sixth. By that point, Keller had already seemingly taken their will. Even that hit was quickly nullified by a ground-ball double play one batter later.
Keller claimed he wasn’t aware he hadn’t given up the hit. He said he was locked into the game, hoping the offense would keep tacking on runs.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 7:12 PM.
