Reds get to Mike Minor quickly in seventh and Kansas City Royals lose series opener
Veteran pitcher Mike Minor had been in cruise control for going on four innings. The Kansas City Royals’ left-hander pitched efficiently and appeared to have firm control of the outing. Well, until he didn’t.
Minor’s night and the game took an abrupt turn in the span of three batters, and there was no time for a course correction as the Royals fell 6-2 to the Cincinnati Reds in front of an announced 14,709 in the opener of a three-game series Monday night at Kauffman Stadium.
The Royals (35-49) have now lost back-to-back games and 11 of 13. They took the first two games of their weekend series against the Minnesota Twins prior to the Reds’ arrival in Kansas City.
Minor (6-7) allowed four runs, three hits and three walks in six innings. He struck out six. He pitched into the seventh inning, but he did not record an out in the inning before the bullpen took over. Three of the runs allowed by Minor came in the seventh inning, and two came after he’d exited the game.
“Up until that point, you’re looking at probably the best start we’ve had this season,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “You’re talking two hits early and nothing until you get to the seventh, a hit batman, one walk on a close pitch. I thought he had thrown as good as we’ve seen him this whole season. That was leading in the direction of being one of those really special starts.”
The Royals had just taken a razor-thin 2-1 lead when a four-run seventh inning for the Reds (44-40) quieted the crowd. It also put the Royals offense, which had scored two runs in the first six innings, in a position to have to score three more in the final three just to pull even.
Minor retired 13 of 15 batters from the middle of the second inning through the sixth, but the game quickly got away from the Royals in the top of the seventh.
Minor gave up a first-pitch home run to Nick Castellanos — his 17th of the season — on a 419-foot smash to left field to start the seventh inning. Minor then walked the next two batters before Matheny called upon right-handed reliever Kyle Zimmer.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think he was going to be aggressive after fouling a couple balls off his shin,” Minor said. “I thought I could just throw something middle-in and he would kind of take a pitch or whatever. But he’s a good hitter, and I shouldn’t have taken a pitch off right there. He tied the ballgame up and then two walks in a row. I thought some of those pitches were close, but I wasn’t really making good pitches there.”
With men on first and second, Zimmer gave up a three-run home run to Eugenio Suarez that gave the Reds a 5-2 lead.
“I was trying to get a ground ball, try to get a double play,” Zimmer said. “Trying to execute a slider down in the zone and get him to roll over it, see what happens. And I just left it up, and he hit it.”
After the homer, a runner reached on error and Zimmer walked two more. He managed to keep any more runs from scoring in the inning. Though the Reds had built up more than enough cushion.
“I was able to minimize it, but the damage was done,” Zimmer said. “That’s just baseball sometimes. I feel really bad. I hate giving up other guy’s runs. But it happens sometimes, you get got.”
The Reds tacked on another run via Tyler Naquin’s RBI single in the ninth inning. The Royals put two men on in the ninth with two outs, but they did not mount a significant rally.
Nicky Lopez had two hits, including a double, and a run scored. Jorge Soler and Carlos Santana each had RBI doubles for the Royals. Santana also scored a run.
The Royals defense tied their season-high with three double plays.
Reds starting pitcher Vladimir Gutierrez (4-3) held the Royals to two runs off five hits and two walks in six innings.
“He throws three pitches, throws them all for strikes,” Lopez said. “He just kind of pounded the zone today and sometimes got us off-balance. I think we put some good swings on it. Obviously, some didn’t fall, but sometimes that’s what happens.”
The Royals scratched out a lead in the bottom of the sixth after a Santana walk and a Salvador Perez single put two men on with no outs.
That set the stage for Soler’s RBI double. Soler, who hadn’t had four RBIs in his previous 27 games, gave the Royals a 2-1 advantage when he lined a 1-1 slider to left field.
The Royals ended up with just one run in the inning after Perez got caught in a rundown as he ran on contact on a Hanser Alberto grounder to shortstop. Then Hunter Dozier’s fly ball to center field ended the inning with two men on base.
Then the Reds took control of the game in the top of the seventh on Castellanos’ aggressive swing.
This story was originally published July 5, 2021 at 10:30 PM.
