Another short night for Brad Keller as KC Royals give up 14 runs in a loss
In his previous start, Brad Keller showed all the traits that made him the budding ace of the Kansas City Royals’ starting rotation and earned him their Opening Day starting nod.
However the right-hander scuffled through a brief-but-rough outing Tuesday night in which his defense let him down more than once.
Keller pitched 1 2/3 innings and allowed five runs, three hits and three walks. He also uncorked one wild pitch. All three walks came in the second inning. It marked the third of his four starts this season that was four innings or fewer.
The Royals’ streak of not having lost a series came to an end after they dropped the second game of their three-game set with the Tampa Bay Rays 14-7 in front of an announced crowd of 4,481 on a cold night at Kauffman Stadium.
The teams will conclude the series on Wednesday night. The Royals (9-7) will try to avoid being swept.
“I can’t pick up my defense when I walk three guys in an inning,” Keller said. “That’s tough. Just unlucky bounces and then got out of my rhythm and tried to do too much, walked guys.”
Keller’s outing lasted 54 pitches, including 36 in the second inning. He recorded five outs, though at least two others should have been logged — if not three.
Of course as Keller pointed out, the walks also kept him from overcoming the miscues.
Keller had runners on the corners with one out after a pair of singles through a shifted defense and a fielder’s choice. But it looked as though he’d gotten Brandon Lowe to hit the double play ball needed to escape the inning with no runs scored.
However the second baseman Whit Merrifield didn’t field the grounder from Lowe cleanly. The Royals failed to record an out on the play and the lead runner, Austin Meadows, scored from third base.
The Rays took a 1-0 lead into the second inning, and Keller issued a leadoff walk to Kevin Kiermaier. Willy Adames followed with a ground ball to Merrifield playing on the shortstop side of second base.
Instead of throwing to first to get Adames, Merrifield flipped to shortstop Nicky Lopez as Lopez, playing midway between second and third, ran towards second base. Kiermaier beat Lopez to the bag and the Royals again failed to record an out.
“It’s tough because I really wanted to pick up my defense there,” Keller said, “and really wanted to push through that inning with the least amount of damage possible and, ultimately, obviously wanted to get deeper into the ballgame then getting pulled in the second inning.”
Keller walked the next batter to load the bases, gave up a sacrifice fly, recorded his lone strikeout of the night and then gave up an RBI single to Joey Wendle. Keller then walked Lowe, and he didn’t face another batter.
Relief pitcher Jake Newberry walked two men with the bases loaded to force in runs that went on Keller’s tab.
“He just had some things not go his way, and the next thing you know we’re at too many pitches and we just had to get him out,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “That last walk was a result of him being tired. We pushed him to the brink, the most we feel comfortable going with in an inning. Not a lot of hard hits. The sac fly was pretty hard hit, but besides that (nothing). Just a tough one.”
The Royals have committed five errors in the first two games of the series. Monday night, their three errors led to three unearned runs. While all 14 runs scored on Tuesday night were earned, defensive plays that weren’t made certainly changed the complexion of innings and extended innings.
“It seems like the miscues are really hurting right now,” Matheny said. “But you’re going to have them, and we have to overcome them from the pitching side or defensively. We’ve got to make up for it somehow. Just like we know when mistakes are made on the mound, we’re going to have defenders that are going to pick us up there as well.”
Carlos Santana went 2 for 4 with a home run, a double and three RBIs for the Royals. Lopez had two hits, including a double, to go with two RBIs and a pair of runs scored. Merrifield also doubled.
The Royals pulled within a run, 5-4, after a four-run third inning that included a two-run single by Lopez and a two-run double by Santana.
The bullpen, pressed into duty early and charged with covering more than seven innings, gave up nine runs on a night that included infielder Hanser Alberto on the mound to record the final out.
Kyle Zimmer gave up four runs and five hits in the sixth inning. Greg Holland gave up a pair of home runs in the ninth before Matheny gave the ball to Alberto with one out remaining.
Alberto’s only other pitching appearance came on April 7, 2019, while a member of the Baltimore Orioles against the New York Yankees. He gave up two runs and one hit, a hit batter and a walk in that outing.
Tuesday night, Alberto faced one batter and got Lowe to hit a fly ball to left field.
“We’re going to keep our heads up,” said Alberto of the defensive miscues. “We’re going to keep working hard, put in practice to get better to make all those plays to help our pitchers. When we make the plays, we make life easy for them. You see (what happens) when we don’t make those plays and the innings go longer and longer.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2021 at 10:53 PM.
