Kowar hit hard early, Perez doesn’t homer as Kansas City Royals lose season finale
The Kansas City Royals’ season finale Sunday followed a frustratingly familiar script for rookie pitcher Jackson Kowar, who endured early struggles and pitched much better as his outing continued.
Kowar allowed five runs on five hits, including a home run, in four innings. He also struck out six and tossed three scoreless to finish off his four-inning outing, but the Royals lost the series finale 7-3 to the Minnesota Twins in front of an announced 17,158 at Kauffman Stadium.
Salvador Perez was 0 for 2, reaching base on a walk and a hit by pitch, finishing the season with 48 home runs, tied with Jorge Soler for the franchise home run record — and the Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for the major league lead. Perez won the major-league RBI title outright with 121.
The game ended with Perez on deck.
Nicky Lopez went 1 for 2 in the final game of the season to end the year batting .300. The Royals took him out of the game after he got an infield single in his second at-bat in order to preserve his .300 batting average.
“Hitting .300 is a big deal, especially as you look at the fact that hasn’t happened for a shortstop here in a long time,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We celebrate guys doing special things. What Nicky has done this season is something we’ll be talking about for a long time. Not just hitting .300, his whole story. How it started and then how he finished and everything he did in between to continue to impress us every single night.”
He’s the first Royals left-handed batter to hit .300 since Eric Hosmer hit .318 in 2017. Lopez is also the first shortstop in Royals history (at least 75% of his games at that shortstop) to hit .300. He finished the season as one of two everyday shortstops in the majors to hit .300 along with Chicago White Sox All-Star Tim Anderson (.309).
The Royals finished the season 74-88, including 38-35 since the All-Star break in early July. They registered their best second-half record since the 2015 World Series championship club went 43-33.
The 2021 Royals’ win total was 15 better than their last full season in 2019, and their winning percentage (.457) increased from last year’s pandemic-shortened season (.433), though they finished fourth in the American League Central Division both seasons.
Kowar, 24, won the Royals organizational pitcher of the year award. He made 17 appearances (16 starts) in the minors this season and went 9-4 with a 3.46 ERA, 115 strikeouts (fifth-most strikeouts among all Triple-A), 34 walks and a .220 opponents’ batting average in 80 2/3 innings.
But in the majors, Kowar went 0-6 with an 11.27 ERA and allowed five runs or more in each of his last five starts.
“You zoom out and look at the year as whole, and I think I did a lot of good things,” Kowar said. “But my goal isn’t to be a good Triple-A player. My goal is to be a winning major-league player. At the end of the day, I’m going to learn a lot more from what happened up here and kind of take some of those lessons and a little bit of that humble pie and that’s going to be a big part of my offseason.”
Kowar didn’t record an out until the seventh batter of the first inning. He gave up five runs on five hits in the first inning, including a double by Byron Buxton followed by a three-run home run by Jorge Polanco. Polanco’s blast gave him 33 this season.
All nine players in the Twins batting order came to the plate in the first inning as Kowar struggled to command pitches and left too many over the heart of the plate.
“Even today, when I started executing pitches and commanding the baseball I’m getting guys out,” Kowar said. “The encouraging thing is I’m not necessarily getting beat while executing. If I go out there and I make good pitches, I’ve had some success here. It’s minimizing the mistakes and commanding the baseball from the first pitch, not once I settle in after 20, 30 pitches.”
Kowar didn’t allow a hit in the next three innings and retired 10 in a row after the Royals had a reliever up in the bullpen in the first inning.
“He keeps showing what he is able to do,” Matheny said of Kowar. “You look at the second, third and fourth, watch him just roll. That’s the pitcher that he is. It’s just getting over that hurdle. When he puts it all together, he’s as good as anybody. I’m excited to watch him. I know he has learned a lot.”
The Royals made it a two-run game in the third. After Lopez’s single and Perez got hit by a pitch, Carlos Santana singled up the middle to drive in the Royals’ first run of the day.
With two outs in the inning after Adalberto Mondesi reached on a fielder’s choice, Mondesi stole second base and the errant throw allowed Perez to score from third while Mondesi advanced to third. Mondesi then scored on a Taylor’s infield single to give the Royals their third run of the inning.
However, the Twins added two more runs in the fifth on Byron Buxton’s two-run home run off of relief pitcher Joel Payamps. Buxton hit a first-pitch slider off the left-field foul pole to boost the Twins lead back to four runs, 7-3.
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 5:41 PM.
