Andrew Benintendi’s homer extends game, but Kansas City Royals fall to Rays in extras
Andrew Benintendi’s solo home run in the ninth helped extend the game an extra inning, but the Kansas City Royals couldn’t get a run across in the 10th. However, The Tampa Bay Rays got the necessary clutch hitting and earned a walk-off win Wednesday night.
Per the extra-inning rules implemented last season, both teams started the 10th with a runner on second base.
The Royals got their runner, Michael A. Taylor, to third base with one out on Adalberto Mondesi’s bunt. However, they couldn’t get him home after Jarrod Dyson flew out to shallow center field and pinch hitter Ryan O’Hearn also flew out.
In the bottom of the inning, the Rays advanced their runner to third on a deep fly ball to the warning track. They had runners on the corners with one out after an intentional walk of Austin Meadows. Then Royals reliever Tyler Zuber gave up an RBI single on Manuel Margot’s sharply hit ground ball to conclude a 2-1 loss in front of an announced 4,973 at Tropicana Field.
“That’s the whole deal with these extra-inning games, you’ve got to score,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I like Mondi doing what he did, that’s one of his gifts. He was just about safe at first base.
“At that point we’re hoping Dyson is able — even if he gets the ball on the ground you’re talking about a contact play that we run extremely well. Then you’d have him on first base, which would still put a runner in scoring position, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get the run across.”
The Royals (23-24) edged the defending AL champion Rays (31-20) by the same score on Tuesday night. The teams will play the rubber match of the three-game series on Thursday afternoon.
“Mike Minor threw the ball really well today, and the bullpen did as well,” Benintendi said. “Same story pretty much as yesterday just we were on the losing side today. I think we’re confident. It shows we can play with them, pitch with them and hit with them. So it will be a run one tomorrow, and it will be a challenge.”
The Royals were held scoreless until Benintendi’s ninth-inning solo home run to center field tied the score 1-1.
Benintendi had two sure extra-base hits robbed from him on Tuesday night by center fielder Kevin Kiermaier. In his first at-bat on Wednesday, former Royals outfielder Brett Phillips tracked down another deep drive slicing towards the gap.
In the ninth with Rays reliever J.P. Feyereisen pitching, Benintendi clubbed a 2-2 changeup deep enough to center field that nobody on the playing field could catch it. Benintendi’s fourth home run of the season tied the score 1-1.
“Once you hit it, it’s all you can really do. Hopefully it catches some outfield grass or turf, ” Benintendi said. “It seems like the last few days and the series against them earlier in the year I hit some balls that I was expecting to be hits, and they covered some ground. It was nice to see one not in a glove.”
Benintendi’s home run, his first extra-base hit since May 5, snapped a personal streak of 18 consecutive singles.
That homer also gave the Royals their second game-tying home run in the ninth inning or later on the road this season. The only other came courtesy of Carlos Santana’s solo homer off Chicago White Sox closer Liam Hendriks on April 11 in Chicago.
Rays starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow turned in a dazzling performance. He threw just 36 pitches to get through four no-hit innings. The 6-foot-8 right-hander struck out 11 and pitched eight innings. The eight innings matched his season high.
Royals starting pitcher Mike Minor allowed just one run on two hits — one infield single — and four walks in five innings. He struck out nine, but his pitch count soared to 96 pitches by the end of the fifth inning — an inning that ended with a runner thrown out trying to steal second base.
“I didn’t want to walk anybody today,” Minor said. “I just got some batters up there where I couldn’t throw strikes, couldn’t throw it where I wanted to, and I feel like they got a little more patient as the game went on.
“It’s a dangerous lineup. I know what they can do. I felt we had a good game plan. I just couldn’t execute the pitches in some of those innings, and the innings were long. I walked too many guys. The pitch count got up there, and I could only go five.”
Entering Wednesday’s game, the Rays had scored 96 runs, batted .282, hit 34 doubles, 24 homers and drew 60 walks in the previous 12 games. They’d also scored nine runs or more in six of 10 games.
Minor had hoped to talk his way into another inning, but he also knew he had a slim chance of successfully making the case to Matheny.
“I don’t know if it’s because of last year and limited innings or whatever — the way they’ve been handling the staff — when I came in I thought that he might talk to me,” Minor said. “I felt like he kind of already made up his mind. I told him that I could go back out there, but he wanted to make the move.”
Minor held the Rays scoreless for the first three innings, though he needed back-to-back strikeouts to strand a pair of runners in the second. He also stranded two in the third after he walked back-to-back batters with two outs.
The Rays’ breakthrough came in the fourth when Mike Zunino hit a two-out RBI single into left field that scored Mike Brosseau, who reached on a walk. That run remained the game’s only scoring until Benintendi’s homer pushed the game into extra innings.
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 9:25 PM.
