Royals rebound from two tough losses to beat the White Sox 9-6 and even the series
The Kansas City Royals rebounded from back-to-back walk-off losses in St. Louis and in the series opener in Chicago to hammer the Chicago White Sox in the second game of their three-game series on Saturday afternoon.
Alex Gordon, Ryan McBroom, Ryan O’Hearn and Maikel Franco each mashed home runs to propel the Royals to a 9-6 victory over the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago. The teams will play the rubber match of their series on Sunday afternoon.
The Royals will try to end a streak of eight consecutive road series losses.
“They were crushing blows, especially the one in St. Louis,” Gordon said of the team’s response to the recent losses. “When you do something like this, when you come back kind of the way we did or they did in St. Louis, you start to forget those (crushing blows). Those are hard to forget at times, especially in a short season like this, but a game like this will do that.”
The Royals (13-20) traded closer Trevor Rosenthal during the game and Ian Kennedy suffered a calf injury in the ninth inning. Right-hander Jesse Hahn came in and recorded his first career save with strikeouts of Yasmani Grandal and José Abreu.
Gordon went 3 for 4, while O’Hearn and Hunter Dozier were each 2 for 4. McBroom set a franchise single-season record with his third pinch-hit home run.
Six different Royals hitters drove in runs, and they also collected six two-out RBIs.
“I think with two outs it’s just a testament to guys up there grinding out at-bats, battling, not giving up on an inning just because there’s two outs,” O’Hearn said. “A guy gets on, then you string two or three hits together and here we go. Today was really good, and I hope we can keep doing that, keep putting runs on the board and make it easier on the pitching staff.”
Royals rookie starting pitcher Brady Singer allowed three runs on five hits and two walks. He struck out four and gave up one home run.
Singer’s previous three starts came against the Minnesota Twins. Saturday marked his first start against a dangerous White Sox lineup.
Singer worked his way into trouble in the third inning, but he limited damage to one run on an RBI single by Nick Madrigal on a soft flare up the middle over an infield playing in with a runner on third base.
Singer struck out the No. 3 and No. 4 hitters, Grandal and Abreu to leave the bases loaded in the third. He shook off the initial call of a fastball from catcher Meibrys Viloria and got Abreu to swing over the top of a slider on a 3-2 count to end the inning.
“I just felt comfortable in that situation throwing a slider,” Singer said. “I feel like I had good feel for the slider all day, especially 3-2.”
The White Sox set a franchise record for home runs in a month (52) on Edwin Encarnacion’s fourth-inning two-run homer that broke a tie and gave the White Sox a 3-1 lead
Home runs have been an Achilles’ heel for Singer this season. Entering the day, 12 of the 17 runs he’d allowed had come on home runs. Saturday, two of the three runs he allowed were via the home run.
“A lot of them have been on some sliders that obviously I have kept in the zone, sliders that have been backing up,” Singer said. “Just keep them lower in the zone and get them to chase a little bit more.”
The Royals trailed 3-1 going into the sixth inning, but they scored the next eight runs to take a 9-3 lead into the ninth inning.
The White Sox didn’t score again until the ninth inning when they scored three runs (two earned) against Kennedy. By that time, the Royals’ offensive outburst had created a sizable cushion.
Before Kennedy entered the game, Jake Newberry, Kyle Zimmer and Greg Holland each pitched a scoreless inning.
“Whenever you see a team take those losses as hard as they do — rightfully so, those were really hard losses to swallow — you just never know how they’re going to respond,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “You’re hopeful. You try and create some of that positivity. To see them do what they did today despite what’s happened and then just keep playing all the way through, that’s special stuff for me.”
