Brad Keller gives up big hit late as Kansas City Royals lose fifth in a row
Kansas City Royals right-hander Brad Keller handcuffed hitters for the better part of seven innings. He used that “heavy” sinker that breaks bats and causes hitters to pepper the infield dirt with grounders. He got hitters to flail at his slider just as it darted away from their bats.
But then he threw one sinking fastball inside that didn’t get far enough inside, or didn’t sink enough, and it turned into a game-deciding home run.
Keller seemed poised to keep the Royals in the driver’s seat as long as he was on the mound, but Detroit Tigers rookie slugger Spencer Torkelson hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning to deal Keller and the Royals a 2-1 loss Friday night in front of an announced 16,720 at Kauffman Stadium. It was the second game of a four-game series between the teams.
The loss extended the Royals’ recent slide to five in a row after they’d won the first two games of the season.
“Tough loss,” Keller said. “I felt like I threw the ball really well. One mistake pitch cost us the game. Whenever you’re in a pitchers’ battle like that, especially when you have the lead, you just want to keep getting outs as quick as you can and preserve the lead. One pitch got me, and ultimately we ended up losing the game. I felt like I threw the ball really well. It’s just a tough one to swallow.”
Keller (0-1) allowed two runs on three hits and two walks in seven innings. He struck out five.
He has now allowed two runs in his first 13 innings of the season (two starts), and he has 10 strikeouts and three walks in that span.
The Royals’ lone run on Friday came in the fourth inning on a Carlos Santana RBI single, which snapped an 0-for-12 skid and gave the club its first lead since their 1-0 extra-inning win last Saturday against Cleveland.
Salvador Perez (2 for 4, run scored) and Nicky Lopez (2 for 3) each had two hits in Friday’s loss.
The Royals collected five hits to the Tigers’ three.
“It’s a long season,” Santana said. “Sometimes you have a bad series, you have a good series. We’re fighting. We’re fighting every game, the last seven games we’re fighting. We’re playing good defense. The pitching is doing a good job. The hitting is doing good. We’re trying to figure out how to win games.”
Perez’s two-out single helped set the stage for Santana’s first RBI of the season. After Perez’s single, Andrew Benintendi reached on a fielding error that pushed Perez into scoring position. Santana then smacked an 0-1, 96-mph fastball from Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal into right field for a line-drive RBI single.
Skubal (1-1) allowed just the one unearned run on four hits in 5 2/3 innings. He struck out seven, six in the first three innings.
“We had a couple balls hit on the screws that didn’t carry too far, didn’t carry like we’d normally like them too,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We had balls hit on the screws late that didn’t fall in. It’s the timely hits. We’ve talked in the past about the situational hitting. That wasn’t the case today. It was just trying to pile them on top of each other.
“We had some swing-and-miss early. Guys made a good adjustment, put good at-bats together. It was going be just one of those lock-down fights that ended up ending the wrong way.”
Keller appeared to be in cruise control with the help of some outstanding glove work by infielders Bobby Witt Jr., Adalberto Mondesi and Lopez.
Keller gave up a one-out double to Tigers star Miguel Cabrera, but the next batter popped out to Mondesi at shortstop for the second out. Torkelson came to the plate with two outs and Cabrera on second.
Torkelson’s home run was the second of his major-league career, and he now has three consecutive games with an RBI.
“We were trying to go in,” Keller said. “That’s the thing. I felt like we executed the pitch. The pitch before, we went in and got a foul ball. We wanted to go further in, and that one just caught too much plate and went right into his barrel. It was tough. We wanted to go in. Just didn’t get it as far in as we wanted to go. So it was a tough one.”
In the eighth inning, Lopez’s leadoff single gave the Royals a glimmer of hope. However, Tigers reliever Joe iménez got Whit Merrifield to pop out and struck out Witt and Perez.
“That was one of the best-pitched games we’ve seen in a long time,” Matheny said. “Brad was so good. Everything he needed, he had today. It’s just a shame. But that was exactly what we needed. We needed somebody to come in and shut the door for us and give us an opportunity to do something offensively. But they pitched pretty well from the other side too.”
The series continues on Saturday afternoon with first pitch scheduled for 3:10 p.m. The Tigers (4-4) list right-hander Matt Manning (0-0, 1.50) as their probable starting pitcher, while left-hander Kris Bubic (0-1, 67.50) will start for the Royals.
This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 9:42 PM.
