Daniel Lynch survives early struggles, but Kansas City Royals lose 4-3 to the Padres
Daniel Lynch’s night appeared to be about a pitch or two away from going completely sideways and forcing the bullpen to work overtime against the San Diego Padres on Saturday.
Instead, the Royals left-hander pulled it together long enough to get through five innings and keep Kansas City within a run, even after facing eight batters and throwing 41 pitches in the third.
“I thought he got a little better as he went, but he was laboring,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “But he kept us in the game. We needed to give our offense some time.”
Unfortunately for the Royals and Lynch, the offense was mostly shut down after a three-run first inning in a 4-3 loss to the Padres in the second game of a three-game series in front of an announced 22,232 at Kauffman Stadium.
“Leaving money on the table in the first and a missed opportunity in the second, those come back to haunt you,” Matheny said. “Even if you have a big inning like we did and it feels like that really good inning, knowing that we had more there, you’ve got to get greedy early in the game to put teams like this away, put pitchers like this away.”
The Padres clinched the series victory with the win. They can sweep the three-game set with a win on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Royals (51-77) slipped to a season-low 26 games below .500.
Lynch (4-9) allowed four runs on nine hits and one walk in five innings. He struck out six and gave up one home run in his 21st start of the season and his first career start against the Padres.
Lynch allowed more than three earned runs for just the second time in his last 10 starts (since June 17).
The outing continued Lynch’s run of tough breaks at home this season. He entered the day having gone 1-3 with a 5.28 ERA in nine home starts this season. Opposing hitters had also batted .277 against him in Kauffman Stadium.
On the road this season, Lynch has three of his four wins (3-5 record) and an ERA of 4.00.
“I think it kind of all just came down to my fastball command,” Lynch said. “I felt like all my other pitches were pretty good tonight, especially my slider. I just wasn’t really commanding the fastball that well. I felt like we had a good plan. I was aggressive, had a good attack plan. I just wasn’t necessarily executing fastballs very well.”
Lynch said he’d made a recent minor adjustment to his slider grip after noticing a difference in his bullpen sessions.
The Royals scored three runs in seven innings against Padres starter Yu Darvish (11-7).
Royals third baseman Hunter Dozier went 2 for 4 with an RBI, and rookie first baseman Nick Pratto (1 for 4) doubled and drove in two runs.
Royals rookie Bobby Witt Jr. went 1 for 3 with a run scored, a walk and two stolen bases to register his third multi-steal game. He’s tied for fourth in MLB with 26 stolen bases.
Witt’s now one of only four players in Royals history with 25 stolen bases or more in his rookie season. He joined Carlos Beltrán (27 steals in his 1999 rookie campaign), Willie Wilson (46 steals in 1978) and Pat Kelly (40 steals in 1969).
The Royals got on the board first with a three-run first inning that saw five consecutive batters reach base. Witt started the processional with a one-out walk, followed by a Perez single, then Ryan O’Hearn for hit by a pitch and Dozier drove in the game’s first run with an RBI single.
Pratto followed with a two-run double over the head of Padres center fielder Jose Azocar. That marked Pratto’s third extra-base hit in a stretch of five at-bats, coming on the heels of a double and a home run on Friday night.
“When you’re facing a guy like Darvish, the stuff he has, it’s important to get off to a really good start, and we did that,” Dozier said. “We had a really good first inning, but he’s really good for a reason. He found his groove, started making really good pitches and we really couldn’t do much after that.”
That three-run advantage didn’t last long thanks to former Royals minor-leaguer Wil Myers, who blasted a two-run homer in the top of the second inning to make it a one-run margin.
Myers, who the Royals traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2012 in the deal that brought James Shields and Wade Davis to KC, entered the series with just one home run in 49 games. He’s hit two in two games so far this weekend.
The Padres took the lead, 4-3, an inning later on RBI singles by Manny Machado and Brandon Drury. Lynch narrowly avoided giving up an even bigger inning. The Padres loaded the bases with one out, but he struck out the last two batters of the inning.
“Just trusting the defense and trying to make good pitches and staying under control,” Lynch said of the key to getting through the fourth. “I felt like even some of the guys that got hits, I was making good pitches. So I was just trying to keep doing that and get through it as quickly as possible.”
Lynch worked a 10-pitch fourth inning with the help of a double play turned by Dozier and second baseman Michael Massey. Lynch faced just four batters to get through the fifth inning.
Royals relief pitchers Collin Snider (one inning), Carlos Hernández (two innings) and Scott Barlow (one inning) combined for four scoreless innings.
Hernández transition encouraging
In his last three appearances (four innings), Hernández has not allowed a run, and he’s given up just two hits and one walk in that span.
“I think we’ve found something that looks very natural for Carlos,” Matheny said. “Just his tempo, his aggressiveness. Everything plays. We’ve always said that. It’s hard to still not think of him as a starter because you know he can hold that high velocity through a hundred pitch count.
“But there’s some guys that just look right when they’re put into leverage towards the back end of a game. He’s got everything he needs to get anybody out.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2022 at 9:18 PM.