Defense falters early, bats go quiet as Kansas City Royals win streak ends in Houston
Defensive miscues put the Kansas City Royals in an early hole, and their offense never got started as the four-game win streak came to an end on Tuesday night in Houston.
The Royals had just four hits and were shut out for the eighth time this season in a 4-0 loss to the Houston Astros in front of an announced 22,964 at Minute Maid Park. They can still salvage a series victory with a win on Wednesday afternoon.
The Royals (56-69) have still won seven of nine games and four of their first five at the start of their 10-game road trip.
Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer gave up four runs — one earned — on seven hits and four walks. He struck out six, and he snapped a string of having allowed a home run in five consecutive road starts.
Three of the four runs allowed by Singer scored in the first inning with the help of a pair of errors, one fielding and one throwing.
“You’d like to think when you have an inning like that, you’re going to bounce back and it doesn’t set the tone, but it did,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “You could tell in the middle innings that we were having trouble recovering from that, but Brady did a good job of fighting through.”
Meanwhile, Astros starter Luis Garcia tossed 6 2/3 scoreless innings with seven strikeouts. He gave up just one extra-base hit, a third-inning leadoff double roped off the left field wall by Michael A. Taylor.
The third inning represented the Royals best scoring chance.
The Royals had runners on second and third with no outs after Taylor doubled, Jarrod Dyson walked and the two successfully executed a double steal. Then Emmanuel Rivera struck out and Whit Merrifield lined out on a bullet that required Astros third baseman Aledmys Diaz to make a leaping catch.
The inning ended when Taylor was thrown out at the plate as he attempted to steal home with an 0-2 count with Nicky Lopez at the plate.
“The first pitch I was testing it out to see what he would do if I broke,” Taylor said. “He kind of looked at me, but he finished his windup. So then I was thinking if we got to two strikes, it would be a good chance to try it. Diaz was playing off so I was trying to get as big of a lead as I could.”
Garcia’s delivery out of the windup featured a web of side-to-side movement including stepping across his body and stepping backward before rocking into a leg kick.
According to Taylor, Garcia took roughly four seconds to make a pitch.
Taking into consideration that Garcia might’ve altered his delivery and the likelihood Garcia was gripping a breaking ball and would have to make an uncomfortable throw to the plate, Taylor viewed the gamble worthwhile.
“That’s why I was waiting until there was two strikes,” Taylor said. “I didn’t want to take the at-bat away from Nicky. Two outs right there, two strikes. It’s still a risk, but I felt like that would be the time to do it if I was going to do it.”
Garcia eliminated some of the side-to-side movement in order to speed up and throw Taylor out.
“We’re an aggressive ball team,” Matheny said when initially asked about Taylor’s decision. “We run the bases aggressively.”
Matheny, who questioned home plate umpire Jim Reynolds about the possibility of a balk after the play, elaborated on Taylor’s gamble later.
“(Garcia) goes all the way through that with the side to side and whatever else he does, and we’re pretty confident Michael is going to be safe right there,” Matheny said. “He was hunting it down.
“Yeah, you look at Nicky’s next at-bat and he hits a line-drive single. Does that absolutely happen if they’re both on second and third? There’s no way to tell on that. But trying to take a shot with two strikes and make something happen, if he’s safe I think we’re all talking about what a momentum-shifter that is.”
The Astros (74-52) loaded the bases against Singer on a sharply hit ball that first baseman Ryan O’Hearn couldn’t glove cleanly and a pair of walks. The ball to O’Hearn initially went as a single, but a scoring change later ruled it an error.
After the error, a groundout drove in one run, but it also put Singer (3-9) within an out of minimizing the damage.
However, Diaz hit a rocket on the ground that the shortstop Lopez dove for and snagged. Lopez threw quickly to first base, but O’Hearn could not corral his one-hop throw. Two more runs scored on the play and put Singer and the Royals in a 3-0 hole.
Singer threw 27 pitches in the first inning.
Singer did not throw a changeup in the first inning. He threw eight changeups in the next three innings, seven against left-handed hitters. He’d made that one of the focuses of his minor-league rehab assignment and professed to want to throw it more upon his return to the majors.
While his changeup was in the upper 80s, he said the velocity wasn’t his primary concern.
“It’s showing it, commanding it, throwing it more,” Singer said. “I feel like I threw it a lot tonight to lefties. I threw one to a righty. It felt good. It’s a hard lineup to throw it to with seven righties in there. I picked out the lefties I wanted to throw it to and it felt good.”
Singer gave up a single to Yuli Gurriel followed by an RBI double to Carlos Correa to start the bottom of the third inning. The Astros led 4-0 going into the fourth inning. The score stayed that way for the rest of the night.
“I think it was definitely a battle,” Singer said. “I feel like I didn’t have my best stuff, but I had enough to get through five. I had four walks, I think three to [Michael] Brantley. I was trying to get him to chase. I felt like I threw some good pitches, just off. He’s obviously one of the best hitters in baseball. … A lot of walks. Three to him, but I think I battled pretty well.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 10:48 PM.
