Kansas City Royals stop losing skid, beat White Sox behind Brad Keller’s strong outing
.JPG "Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Brad Keller delivers in the first inning of the first game of a baseball doubleheader Friday, May 14, 2021, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)")
Kansas City Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez came trotting around first base after a three-run home run in the third inning and gave an emphatic fist pump as if he were delivering the final blow to the energy-draining losing skid his club had endured.
The Royals rolled into Chicago and snapped an 11-game losing streak with their first win since May 1 as they took the first game of a split doubleheader against the division rival Chicago White Sox on Friday afternoon.
The White Sox entered the day riding a six-game win streak, the best record in Major League Baseball, and they swept the Royals last weekend in a three-game series in Kansas City.
However on Friday, Michael A. Taylor’s second-inning homer gave the Royals a lead and Perez’s three-run blast an inning later provided breathing room as the Royals took firm control on their way to a 6-2 win in a seven-inning game in front of an announced 8,574 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“Every time we hit a homer it makes people feel good, especially in the situation we are in right now,” Perez said of his exuberance rounding the bases. “When I saw it’s over (the wall), I was celebrating for my team and for me that I was able to put some more runs on the score, especially against one of the best pitchers in (Lucas) Giolito. It was exciting.”
The Royals’ losing streak represented the longest in the majors since 2018, when both the Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants had 11-game skids.
It was also the longest for the Royals (17-20) since they went on a 12-game slide from April 11-24, 2012.
The Royals had the best record in the majors when this slide started, and it had carried them all the way under .500.
“The staff and all of us that watch know that this is going to work out, but when you’re in the middle of it you can’t help but have negativity just hanging out there,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “You need the positive reinforcement, not just verbally and from support, you need it in the result. So this is a big game for us and one that we hope to build on.”
Nicky Lopez extended his hitting streak to five games, and he had a stolen base and scored the Royals’ sixth run in the seventh inning on a Carlos Santana RBI single. Santana reached base three times (one hit, two walks) and also scored a run.
Royals starting pitcher Brad Keller (3-4) struck out seven in five innings and allowed two runs on five hits and three walks.
“Brad just staying within himself and figuring it out and fighting his way through some early struggles to be able to be out there for as long as we needed him, it was a great job,” Matheny said.
The White Sox (22-14) drew first blood with a run in the bottom of the first on Jose Abreu’s sacrifice fly. However, Keller limited the damage to one run in an inning during which the White Sox put three men on base, including two walks.
Keller threw 36 pitches in the first inning and was teetering on the edge of having to be taken out of the game, but he froze White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal on a slider for a called third strike that ended the inning and stranded two men on base.
“I just tried to keep moving on to the next pitch,” Keller said. “I feel like I made some really good pitches that inning. I feel like my two walks were pretty competitive, if there can be a competitive walk. Like I said, I just had to move on to the next pitch, move on to the next batter.”
Taylor’s homer in the second inning came two batters after Jorge Soler singled to left field. It snapped a stretch of 102 at-bats without a homer for Taylor, dating back to his second home run of the season on April 3.
The top of the second inning also included a violent collision that knocked Royals third baseman Hunter Dozier and Abreu out of the game. The collision happened as Dozier was running to first and Abreu was tracking Dozier’s pop-up.
Perez’s eighth homer of the season came on the heels of a Santana walk and a single by Andrew Benintendi, who batted in the No. 3 spot in the lineup. Perez swatted a first-pitch slider to the opposite field. His high drive narrowly cleared the right-field wall.
In the bottom half of the second inning, following Taylor’s homer, and the bottom of the third, following Perez’s homer, Keller retired the White Sox in order in crucial shutdown innings.
“That was huge,” Keller said. “I feel like that was really encouraging to the whole team. (We) put up five runs in two innings. Just to go out there and put up two zeros was my only focus. I didn’t care how it happened. I just had to put up a zero. So that was big especially with the way things were going and this losing streak that we were on. To put up zeros was big.”
The White Sox second run also came on a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning.
This story was originally published May 14, 2021 at 4:57 PM.
