Kansas City Royals offense pours it on in 9-1 win to complete sweep of Chicago Cubs
The Kansas City Royals started their series in the Windy City by riding a five-home run performance to victory, but they finished off a sweep of the Chicago Cubs with a nine-run, 16-hit performance that didn’t include a single homer.
Seven Royals enjoyed multi-hit days, six scored runs and six drove in runs — led by Andrew Benintendi’s 3-for-4 game with three RBIs and two runs scored — as they defeated the Cubs 9-1 on Sunday afternoon in front of an announced 29,640 at Wrigley Field.
With the sweep over the Cubs, the Royals (55-68) have won six of seven games. They’ve also won six of their last eight road games.
They wrapped up interleague play 12-8 against NL clubs.
“Everything is sort of coming together,” Royals All-Star infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield said. “We’re hitting. We’re pitching. We’re playing defense, running the bases. It’s what we’ve been striving for all year, and it seems to be clicking for us now. So we’ve got to continue to play well and finish the season strong.”
The Royals will continue their three-city, 10-day road trip at Houston. They’ll begin a three-game series with the Astros on Monday night.
Royals first baseman Carlos Santana had three hits, an RBI and a run scored. Merrifield went 2 for 4 with two runs scored and an RBI, while Nicky Lopez went 2 for 3 with two runs scored, an RBI, a stolen base and two walks.
Hunter Dozier (2 for 4), Benintendi and Santana each roped doubles. Michael A. Taylor and Emmanuel Rivera also had two hits apiece.
“It’s fun. What, seven guys had multiple hits today? It’s contagious,” Benintendi said. “Once you start seeing it, you want to be a part of it. Obviously, you wanting to be a part of it is not that easy to just go out there and get hits.
“But we took our singles today. The wind was blowing in. Nothing was really carrying out to the outfield, so we just tried to single them to death. Once you get the leadoff guy on, there’s a lot of motion going. If we can keep doing that, that would be awesome.”
The Royals put the leadoff batter on every inning from the second through the eighth. The 16 hits were a season high, and they went 5 for 18 (.278) with runners in scoring position.
The last time the Royals had seven players with multi-hit days in a nine-inning game came on May 4, 2019, in Detroit.
Through the first five innings, seven of the nine hitters in the Royals’ starting lineup had either scored or driven in runs.
One of the two who hadn’t factored into the scoring was starting pitcher Carlos Hernández, who didn’t have a single plate appearance in the majors entering the day. The other, All-Star catcher Salvador Perez, hit two homers in the series-opening win on Friday.
Hernández tossed a career-high seven innings and struck out a career-high eight batters on his way to his fourth win of the season. He allowed one run, four hits and three walks.
“It’s just attacking hitters from the beginning of the game,” Hernández said with assistant strength and conditioning coach Luis Perez translating. “I’m going to stick to that plan. It has given me good results so far.”
Hernández (4-1) won his third straight decision and recorded his third quality start of the season. He has now pitched into the seventh inning in each of his last three starts.
“It goes back to the conversations we’ve been having with a lot of our young pitchers, it’s trusting their stuff,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “His stuff should be trusted.
“The way the ball was jumping out of his hand. He didn’t throw a lot of changeups, but even when he did, that was good. The hook was there for a strike. He had a good feel of how to try to get chase. He just was in control.”
After the Royals went down in order in the first, they put multiple runners on base in the next seven innings. They scored in each inning from the second through the sixth.
They built a five-run lead against Cubs right-hander and former Royal Alec Mills before the Cubs (54-72) even scored. Mills lasted just four innings and gave up seven runs (six earned) on 11 hits.
Benintendi had a hand in each of the first three runs. In the second, he reached on an infield single and advanced to second base on a fielding error. He then scored on Dozier’s RBI single to give the Royals a 1-0 lead.
In the third after Perez struck out with runners on second and third, Benintendi hit a two-run double to center field.
The Royals tacked on two more runs in the fourth on a Merrifield sacrifice fly followed by a Lopez RBI single with two outs. Rivera, who singled earlier in the inning, set up Lopez’s RBI by taking second base on a delayed steal to put himself in scoring position during Lopez’s at-bat.
The Cubs scored in the bottom of the fourth after a miscommunication between the center fielder Taylor and the right fielder Dozier allowed a ball both were converging upon to fall on the warning track and bounce over the wall into the stands for a double.
Two batters later, Matt Duffy’s one-out single drove in the Cubs’ lone run and made the score 5-1.
The Royals tacked on two runs in the fifth on a Dozier RBI double and a Taylor sacrifice fly. Then they added another two in the sixth on Benintendi’s sacrifice fly and Santana’s RBI single.
“That was a relentless offensive attack,” Matheny said. “... I thought this was as good of a series as I’ve seen in a long time as far as base running goes. Guys just really put on the pressure.”
This story was originally published August 22, 2021 at 4:54 PM.
