Royals brought ‘A New Hope’ to LA on Star Wars Night. Shohei Ohtani had other plans

Yellow text rolled down the right-field video board on “Star Wars Night” — with the Los Angeles Angels’ marketing team doing a valiant job of making a late-April matchup against a floundering Royals squad seem a narrative worthy of a sci-fi epic.

The familiar strings of John Williams’ orchestra echoed across the Angel Stadium diamond, and the famed title-text of “Star Wars” lore announced the Angels’ dreams to “bring glory to their home planet.”

“But the Royals,” the board read, “have devised a sinister plot to sabotage their opponents and steal the victory for themselves.”

Sinister? Not so much. Not on this warm Friday night, as the Royals had to suddenly scramble for answers, no longer rolling with the steady Zack Greinke against a Darth Vader-powerful hurler in Shohei Ohtani.

Kris Bubic was suddenly out for the year needing Tommy John surgery, and with the rotation’s structure demolished, Royals manager Matt Quatraro cobbled together an opener of Taylor Clarke followed by lefty Ryan Yarbrough in a bulk-relief role.

So, no. Not an evil master plan. A hope: hope that Clarke could string together a couple solid innings, hope that Yarbrough could recapture the magic of his early success with the Tampa Bay Rays.

And Clarke and Yarbrough did about as well as could be expected across six combined innings of two-run ball. But hope can only carry one’s wings so far against the unrelenting rockets from Ohtani’s right arm, and hope for a Royals season buoyed by development from a young core continued to fizzle Friday in a 2-0 loss.

“I thought overall the at-bats were pretty good, considering we’re facing him,” Quatraro said. “But wasn’t good enough.”

In the dugout pregame, standout second-year first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino said he didn’t plan to change his approach against Ohtani, his first career at-bats against the Angels’ two-way force. He would attack how he wanted to, Pasquantino said, and go from there.

“Hope to be ready for whatever he’s got for us,” Pasquantino said.

Ohtani instead had back-to-back-to-back swinging strikeouts of Bobby Witt Jr., MJ Melendez and Pasquantino to open the game, toying with Royals hitters with a devastating “sweeper,” a new offering that careens horizontally like an empty glass across a wet bar-top. All the Royals could muster were a couple measly hits, and the Angels’ ace only reached back further as the night went on in an 11-strikeout performance.

In the top of the seventh, Pasquantino trudged away in disagreement after a 3-2 curveball from Ohtani just nipped the inside half of the plate, with Ohtani nodding his head after the strike-three call. Salvador Perez was next on the chopping block, waving at a 2-2 curve. And Michael Massey was left buckling in the dirt after Ohtani’s final pitch of the night — a sweeper — that dropped the scuffling Royals second baseman’s average to .115.

Clarke was a silver lining, matching Ohtani step-for-step with a pair of no-hit innings to open the night. He even whiffed the two-way star on a pretty slider. And bulk-man Yarbrough was mostly fine in four innings, but made a single wrong turn, floating a changeup to Angels catcher Chad Wallach that he blasted for a 424-foot two-run homer.

They were the only runs the Angels would need, an unfortunate continuation of brutal offensive showings for Kansas City. A 3-for-28 night brought the club’s collective average to .203.

Quatraro’s admission the Royals had “pretty good” at-bats was accurate, but pretty good at-bats that end in four-pitch swinging whiffs did not make for much production. And the Royals are 4-16, posting a record increasingly barren of wins with no oasis in sight.

As for the clubhouse morale, Perez, a longtime Royals star, told a teammate pregame he just wanted a win. Yarbrough said postgame the Royals were “working their asses off.” Pasquantino spoke for minutes on end to The Star pregame about his empathy for fans’ frustration.

“I just think we gotta start being ourselves out there,” Witt Jr. said postgame.

Game 2 of the series approaches.

This story was originally published April 21, 2023 at 11:05 PM.