Kansas City Royals closer Scott Barlow pulls double duty in doubleheader sweep

Kansas City Royals closer Scott Barlow picked up his 14th save of the season in a routine 3-1 victory over Detroit on Monday afternoon.

A few hours later, as the Royals headed toward the ninth inning of the doubleheader nightcap with a two-run lead, Barlow was ready to go again, having only needed six pitches for his first three outs.

“That’s not every day that you have your guy that finishes games to throw both ends of (a doubleheader),’” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “Before I even got to him, he was already telling me, ‘Let’s go.’”

Matheny told Barlow that he’d probably only go in if it was a save situation. But when the Royals tacked on two more runs to extend their lead to four runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, Matheny sent out his closer anyway.

Barlow took care of business: sending Detroit’s Victor Reyes and Riley Greene back to their dugout with two nasty breaking balls and ending his long day with a flyout from Javier Báez as the Royals swept the doubleheader in the 7-3 win on Monday night.

It wasn’t a double save on a doubleheader. But the four-run lead was just slim enough for Matheny to send out Barlow for the second time: the three-batter minimum meant that if another reliever got into trouble, there might not have been enough time for Barlow to come in and save the day after that.

Barlow has come close to pitching twice in a day before.

“Almost getting into the one game in Chicago, it was always in the back of my mind, like ‘Oh, that would be really cool to pitch in two games in one day,’” Barlow said. “That’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

He finally got his opportunity on Monday, and as the Royals looked toward Tuesday night’s game against the Tigers, Barlow said he still felt loose.

“We’ll see what tomorrow brings,” Barlow said. “I feel like I could go again, but we’ll see.”

This story was originally published July 12, 2022 at 10:17 AM.