Michael A. Taylor’s dazzling game can’t stop Kansas City Royals seventh loss in a row
Runs were scored in each of the first six innings. Three Kansas City Royals hit home runs. The contest featured seven ties or lead changes. Neither team led by more than one run in the game.
There certainly wasn’t a lack of tension or excitement Tuesday night. However, the Royals couldn’t produce the one last rally they needed in a 7-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox in the second game of a four-game set in front of an announced 25,180 at Fenway Park in Boston.
The Royals (33-45) have lost seven in a row with two games remaining on their 10-game, thee-city road trip.
“I think we’re having quality at-bats as a team and grinding counts and putting the ball in play,” Royals center fielder Michael A. Taylor said. “Those are all things that we need to do to have competitive at-bats and put runs on the board.”
Taylor homered, reached base four times and recorded his fourth outfield assist of the season in the second inning. Taylor went 3 for 3 with a run scored, a stolen base, three RBIs and a walk.
Taylor, an offseason free-agent signing who’d spent his career in the Washington Nationals organization, entered the day having played just five games in Boston at the oldest ballpark in the majors.
In those five previous games at Fenway Park, he’d driven in six runs, hit a homer and slashed .316/.350/.632. Taylor said he enjoys the atmosphere of that ballpark.
Asked what about the environment at Fenway stands out, Taylor said, “The old style stadium, the history, the energy in the ballpark. They draw pretty well here. A Tuesday night and we had 25,000 people. That’s pretty good, and they’re always engaged, into the game. It makes for a good atmosphere.”
Ryan O’Hearn went 3 for 4 with a home run and two RBIs. O’Hearn hit his third home run in eight games since having been recalled from Triple-A. Hunter Dozier went 2 for 4 with two doubles and two runs scored.
Whit Merrifield belted a leadoff homer to start the game — the 10th of his career — to give himself homers in back-to-back games. Merrifield went 2 for 4 with a stolen base and a run scored.
Third baseman Emmanuel Rivera, who made his MLB debut on Monday, was removed from the game in the second inning with left wrist pain. Tuesday was his 25th birthday.
The Royals registered 13 hits and went 4 for 13 (.308) with runners in scoring position. For the second night in a row, the Royals hit three home runs.
“If there’s something positive to take away from tonight, it’s just the fact that we kept battling,” O’Hearn said. “We kept finding ways to get runners on. Guys had a lot of big hits. The mentality is always fight until the end, until the ninth inning. That hasn’t changed. It’s not going to change. It’s just tough with all that emotion and all that energy going into a game and at the end of the day you don’t come out on top.”
Tuesday night, Dozier and Taylor combined to spark the offense from the Nos. 7 and No. 8 spots in the batting order.
The Royals tied the score, 2-2, in the second after Dozier doubled off the green monster in left field and scored on Taylor’s RBI single up the middle.
After the Red Sox had pulled back in front, the Dozier-Taylor combination flipped the game in the Royals favor, 4-3, in the top of the fourth.
Dozier’s second double of the day put him aboard for Taylor’s opposite-field two-run homer. Taylor clubbed a first-pitch slider into the stands for his seventh homer of the season. His blast went an estimated 381 feet to right-center field.
“It worked well with Doz getting into a nice routine where he’s getting on and giving Michael an opportunity to not do too much,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “That’s hard to say when you end up hitting a home run to the opposite field. But that’s what he was trying to do, just move the guy over, drive the ball the other way, not give yourself up in that situation.
“It just continues to amaze me, the skill this guy has, the talent to be able to leave this park in that part of the park is very rare.”
Royals starting pitcher Brad Keller struggled at times to put the ball where he wanted as evident by his five walks and a hit batter, but he got through five innings with a one-run lead despite having given up five runs in the back-and-forth contest.
Keller pitched into the sixth, but he gave up a leadoff single by Bobby Dalbec and Matheny brought on left-hander Jake Brentz with a runner on base.
Keller allowed six runs and 10 hits — all singles — and five walks. He did not record a strikeout.
Brentz walked a runner with one out and then allowed both the runner he walked and the runner he inherited from Keller to score on J.D. Martinez’s two-run double as the Red Sox took a 7-6 lead in the sixth inning.
“We believe that Jake can come into any spot,” Matheny said. “Obviously, he struck out the side right there. It was just one changeup. … He made really good pitches. He has been good all season getting the swing and miss when we need it.”
This story was originally published June 29, 2021 at 10:00 PM.
