Kansas City Royals rally from behind in 4 straight innings but lose in 11th to Yankees
Three times the Kansas City Royals fell behind and needed to do whatever it took — beg, borrow, steal — to score one run.
They tied the score in the bottom of the seventh and the eighth innings. Then with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth, they got the run they needed as well.
In the 10th inning, they rallied a fourth time to score two runs and extend the game.
The fifth try became too much. They dug a three-run hole in the top half of the 11th inning, and that’s the one deficit they couldn’t overcome Monday night. The Royals lost a wild back and forth series-opening thriller 8-6 to the New York Yankees in front of an announced 18,477 at Kauffman Stadium.
“Seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, being down two,” Matheny said. “I will not tire of talking about how hard these guys play the game and how great of a job they do of fighting back in all the time. It’s unique, and it’s something special.”
Veteran reliever Greg Holland gave up a leadoff RBI double in the 11th inning, and then came within one strike of getting out of the inning with just one run scored.
But Holland loaded the bases with walks to No. 8 hitter Tyler Wade and No. 9 hitter Kyle Higashioka before he got to two strikes and then watched Yankees veteran Brett Gardner rip a ground ball up the middle at 100.8 mph that took a hop and ricocheted off the chin of shortstop Nicky Lopez as two insurance runs scored.
Lopez remained on the ground when manager Mike Matheny and head trainer Nick Kenney came out to check on him.
“The doctors had a look at him and said it was a non-concussive event,” Matheny said. “That was the information that we got. But yeah, it hit him pretty hard.”
The two-run single off Lopez’s chin went in the books as the second of two hits allowed by Holland (2-5) to with two walks and three runs (two earned). Holland, who did not do a postgame video conference, has now allowed three runs in each of his last two outings.
In the bottom half of the 11th and trailing by three runs, the Royals scored on an Edward Olivares pinch-hit RBI single. Olivares batted for Lopez, who finished out the top of the inning on the field.
Then Hunter Dozier’s single put two men on base and brought the potential winning run to the plate in Carlos Santana, who grounded out.
The Royals (48-63) have lost three of four while the Yankees (62-50) continued the tear that has seen them win nine of 11.
Ryan O’Hearn, Andrew Benintendi and Lopez each delivered clutch RBIs as the Royals rallied to tie the score in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
With the Royals trailing by two in the 10th, they got a sacrifice fly from Jarrod Dyson and a RBI single from Hanser Alberto with two outs to tie the score once more.
“It was a little hard,” Alberto said of the way things played out in the 11th. “I think it wasn’t supposed to happen there (like that), but the game is like that. A lot of weird things happen. Nicky did his best, and that ball hopped and got us. That’s the way the game is.”
According to Stats Perform, the Royals are the first modern major-league team to erase a deficit in the seventh through 10th innings in the same game. And Monday’s game was the first in MLB history in which both teams scored in the seventh through 11th innings, according to Elias Sports.
“We kept (our) heads up the whole time because we know we competed against a pretty good team,” Alberto said. “They are in a good spot right now. They’re playing really good baseball.”
Emmanuel Rivera and Lopez had two hits apiece. Salvador Perez reached base three times and walked twice in a game for the first time since May 9, 2017.
Perez came out in favor of a pinch runner in the eighth inning. He represented the go-ahead run at that point. Rivera came out in favor of a pinch runner, Dyson, in the seventh inning.
Through six innings, the respective starting pitchers allowed a total of five hits and zero runs with Yankees right-hander Jameson Taillon having given up three hits and Carlos Hernández having yielded just two.
The Yankees finally broke the ice in the seventh against Hernández on a two-out RBI single by Luke Voit, who was drafted out of Missouri State and a native of Wildwood, Missouri.
The Royals pulled even in the bottom of the seventh thanks to a leadoff single by Rivera. Dyson promptly entered the game as a pinch runner and his presence seemingly threw Yankees reliever Jonathan Loaisiga out of whack.
Loaisiga threw an errant pickoff attempt to first base which allowed Dyson to advance to second. Then Loaisiga committed a balk which advanced Dyson to third with no outs.
The next batter, O’Hearn, roped a line drive at 108.5 mph to right field. Judge caught the drive, but it was deep enough for Dyson to tag and score with a head-first slide to tie the score 1-1 in the seventh.
The balk call set off Yankee manager Aaron Boone and earned him an ejection from umpire Pat Hoberg for arguing the balk call.
The seventh inning set the stage for three more innings of the Yankees taking a lead and the Royals rallying to match them.
Lopez and Perez led the charge as the Royals responded in the bottom half of the inning. Lopez led off with a single, and Perez drew his second walk of the night.
Santana’s deep fly ball to center field allowed Lopez to tag and advance to third, but Yankees center fielder Brett Gardner alertly threw to second base to assure the go-ahead run did not advance into scoring position.
Benintendi followed with an RBI single to right field that tied the score 2-2.
After rallying twice, the Royals faced their first back-against-the-wall scenario in the ninth after Voit homered to give the Yankees a 3-2 edge.
In the bottom of the ninth, Whit Merrifield drew a two out walk and stole his MLB-leading 31st base of the season to move into scoring position. Then with two outs and two strikes, Lopez lined an RBI single into left field against Yankees lefty reliever Zack Britton to tie the score 3-3.
The Yankees tacked on two runs in the 10th against Royals reliever Richard Lovelady with the benefit of starting the inning with a free runner on second base.
The bottom half of the 10th was when Dyson’s sacrifice fly and Alberto’s single pulled them back to even, 5-5, and set the table for the decisive 11th inning.
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 12:28 AM.
