Mike Minor gets roughed up by former club as Kansas City Royals lose to Rangers
Mike Minor’s former teammates gave him an extremely rude welcome back to Texas. The Kansas City Royals’ left-hander gave up a career-high nine runs and the club turned to recently reinstated starting pitcher Danny Duffy to save some wear and tear on an overworked bullpen.
A pair of big innings doomed Minor’s night against one of his former clubs, a four-run fourth inning and a five-run sixth inning paved the way to the Royals’ 9-4 loss to the Texas Rangers in front of an announced 30,389 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
“I feel like even when I made decent pitches, they still got hits,” Minor said. “That was kind of how the night went, and you’ve just got to tip your cap and move on. That might have been one of my worst games, statistically, of my career. But I don’t feel like I’m going to change a whole lot.”
He’d allowed a total of seven runs in his previous three starts combined.
Minor said he didn’t have the same quality slider he had in his previous start (when he went 6 2/3 innings and allowed just two runs). The fastballs up in the zone he has had success with were either missing high or inside.
“That was basically the outing right there, not making the pitches that I want, not making the pitches when I need to and then a couple hits that maybe I made some pitches on,” Minor said. “Overall, it wasn’t good enough to win. I don’t deserve to get a quality start out of that.”
The Royals (33-41) fell to a season-worst eight games below .500, and they’ve lost three in a row.
While the Royals were playing in Globe Life Field for the first time since the ballpark opened last season, Minor made four starts there last season. He pitched for the Rangers from 2018-2020 prior to being traded to the Oakland Athletics late last season.
Familiarity did him no favors: He allowed nine runs on 11 hits and two walks in five innings. He faced five batters in the sixth inning, but he did not record an out and all five scored.
The Royals grabbed the lead on Whit Merrifield’s RBI triple to center field with two outs in the third inning. The hit extended his hitting streak to 11 games.
Merrifield’s sinking line drive got past the diving attempt of Rangers center fielder Adolis Garcia. The Royals hadn’t had a hit up until that point. Nicky Lopez, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, scored from first base on Merrifield’s hit.
Minor retired the first five batters he faced, and held the Rangers (28-48) scoreless through the first three innings. He allowed just two singles through the first three innings.
“It happened fast,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I think the fourth happened in about five pitches. I truly thought we were watching our first complete game of the season, the way he was rolling, making good pitches and then a couple things happened fast.”
The Rangers jumped ahead 4-1 in the fourth inning after Minor walked the first batter and gave up a single to right field, putting the first two men on. Merrifield made a diving stop at second base to keep Andy Ibanez’s grounder on the infield.
However, Merrifield threw wildly from his knees and the throwing error allowed a run to score and left men on second and third.
With the score tied and two men on, Nate Lowe’s low liner sliced to left field and got past Hunter Dozier for a two-run triple. Dozier got a late read on the ball, and his diving attempt proved fruitless.
Jonah Heim’s RBI single to left field drove in Lowe for the fourth run of the inning.
“Whit made a great play, getting to that ball,” Matheny said. “Just the throw took him off. The one in left field, I think it just kind of surprised Doz, how much it carried. He was going to play it on a hop. Then it carried a little more and he got caught in between. If he attacks that and is able to catch it, I don’t think they even try to score on the tag. That one certainly ended up costing him.”
The Royals pulled within two runs, 4-2, thanks to three consecutive two-out hits in the fifth inning. Lopez’s single to left field started the mini-rally. Then Merrifield followed with an infield single. Carlos Santana doubled to the right-field wall, scoring Lopez.
Garcia caught Salvador Perez’s deep drive to right-center field at the wall to end the inning and strand Merrifeild and Santana at second and third.
The Rangers blew the game open with the five-run sixth inning, which started with three straight singles from Ibanez, Lowe and Nick Solak. Solak’s single to right field drove in the first run. Then Heim doubled just inside the left-field line and into the corner, driving in another run.
Charlie Culberson followed with a two-run double to center field that made it 8-2. Culberson was the last batter Minor faced. After Minor exited, Culberson tagged and advanced on a fly ball to right field. Then Culberson scored on a sacrifice fly for the fifth run of the inning and ninth of the day for the Rangers.
Duffy, who had pitched two innings on Wednesday night in New York, pitched one inning of no-hit relief and threw 15 pitches on Friday. The outing marked his second relief appearance since the end of the 2016 season.
Anthony Swarzak, who gave up three runs in one inning on Thursday, also pitched a scoreless inning following Duffy’s inning.
The Royals tacked on two runs in the ninth inning. With two outs, Jorge Soler singled and Dozier doubled. Both scored on Michael A. Taylor’s single to left field, which gave the Royals four runs for the game.
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 10:16 PM.
