Bobby Witt Jr. has four-hit night as Kansas City Royals complete doubleheader sweep
For the first time since 1999, the Kansas City Royals’ lineup featured rookies in the first, second and third spots in the batting order with MJ Melendez as the first catcher in franchise history to hit leadoff, followed by shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and designated hitter Vinnie Pasquantino.
That trio accounted for seven hits, three runs scored and four RBIs in the Royals’ 7-3 win over the Detroit Tigers Monday night in front of an announced 16,202 for the second game of a doubleheader at Kauffman Stadium.
With a doubleheader sweep, the Royals (34-52) have won three straight games and four of five. They also assured themselves at worst a split of the four-game set.
“It was fun, two wins,” Pasquantino said. “My college coach is very famous for saying doubleheaders are unbelievably hard to sweep, and we successfully did that today. You kind of go in and you hope to win one. That’s kind of the game plan for the day.
“But we had one of those really special days where we were able to win both, and both were well-played. I thought we just did a nice job as a whole. We hit. We pitched. We played defense. We did all facets of the game.”
Witt registered the first four-hit game of his major-league career with a 4-for-5 performance that included a run scored, three RBIs and a stolen base. He had three hits by the end of the third inning.
He also became the first major-league player since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920 to record six hits or more, three RBIs or more and three stolen bases or more in a doubleheader sweep.
Melendez went 1 for 3 with a walk, an RBI and two runs scored.
“Seeing MJ leading off, everyone was talking about it in the locker room,” Witt said. “It’s always great seeing a guy like him up there, just the plate discipline he has and just how he’s so athletic. He can be a leadoff guy. He can be a power guy. He can be whatever you need. It shows what he did at that plate, a couple knocks, a couple walks. He did his job.”
Pasquantino, who logged the first multi-hit game of his career in the 3-1 afternoon win, including his second career home run, reached base four times in the nightcap. He went 2 for 3 with two walks.
“Watching the excitement that they bring, just their style of play,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of that rookie trio at the top of the lineup. “They’re being themselves, but they’re having fun and it’s contagious.”
Nicky Lopez went 2 for 3 with a sacrifice bunt and two runs scored. Ryan O’Hearn went 1 for 4 and drove in a pair of runs in a three-run second inning for the Royals. Emmanuel Rivera (1 for 3) walked, doubled and scored twice.
Lynch battles another finger issue
Royals starting pitcher Daniel Lynch came out of the game in the fifth inning after facing one batter due to a cut the middle finger of his left hand that opened up and starting bleeding.
He’d just come off a stint on the injured list caused by a blister on the index finger of the same hand.
Lynch allowed three runs (two earned), six hits and one walk in four innings.
The Tigers (36-51) got on the board quickly with the aid of a fielding error by Royals third baseman Rivera followed by an RBI double to the wall in center field by Tigers shortstop Javier Baez.
However, the Royals scored the next five runs.
Witt’s RBI double drove in Melendez and evened the score in the bottom of the first. Melendez started the game by drawing a walk on five pitches.
The Royals added three more runs in the third inning on an RBI single by Witt and a two-run single by O’Hearn.
Melendez added a sacrifice fly in the third inning after Rivera doubled and advanced to third on a Lopez sacrifice bunt. That gave the Royals a 5-1 advantage.
The Tigers manufactured a run of their own in the fourth. Willi Castro hit a leadoff double, tagged up and advanced on a fly ball to left field and scored on a single that Witt knocked down deep in the hole between shortstop and third base.
Lynch exited the game one batter into the fifth, and reliever Jose Cuas entered with no outs and a runner on first.
“I tried to kind of get it glued up to keep the blood from coming out,” Lynch said. “I didn’t feel it that bad. It’s just obviously frustrating that this is something I’ve never really dealt with and I think that it’s sort of just a coincidence that these have popped up because it had nothing to do with the other ones I was dealing with.”
Miguel Cabrera hit an RBI double off of Cuas which moved him into a tie with Paul Molitor for 14th place in major-league history in doubles as well as a tie with Ken Griffey Jr. for 16th in both RBIs and doubles, and also pulled the Tigers within two runs, 5-3.
Left-hander Angel Zerpa (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings of one-hit relief to earn his first major-league win.
The score got no closer than two runs for the rest of the night as the Royals added two more runs in the eighth when Witt hit an RBI single to bring in Rivera, and Lopez scored from third on a wild pitch.
“I’m just really frustrated because I want to go out there and pitch well for us,” Lynch said. “I felt like I was doing a lot of things well tonight, and I felt like I had a lot more in the tank -- at least two more innings.”
Roster moves
Prior to Monday’s doubleheader, the Royals activated Lynch from the IL and designated left-handed pitcher Foster Griffin for assignment.
The Royals also recalled left-handed pitcher Angel Zerpa from Double-A to serve as the 27th man on the roster for the doubleheader.
Infielder Maikel Garcia arrived in KC prior to the doubleheader as part of the club’s taxi squad, but he was not added to the active roster.
This story was originally published July 11, 2022 at 10:18 PM.
