Royals’ Jac Caglianone does Texas two-step at The K, homering twice vs. Rangers
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Jac Caglianone hit two home runs to lead the Royals to a 5-3 win over Texas.
- He was held out Sunday and given an extra day of rest plus Monday's off day.
- Alex Lange recorded his fourth save of the season.
The Kansas City Royals held Jac Caglianone out of Sunday’s series finale at the Minnesota Twins because of soreness in his right shoulder.
There wasn’t much concern about the hard-slugging right fielder’s condition, however. Royals manager Matt Quatraro felt Caglianone was steadily improving and just decided to give him an extra day of rest ahead of Monday’s scheduled off-day.
Well, Caglianone certainly looked well-rested on Tuesday night: He belted two home runs as the Royals earned a 5-3 win over the Texas Rangers at Kauffman Stadium.
Caglianone bested Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi throughout the game. In the second inning, he worked an 11-pitch walk with two outs. Eovaldi offered him a healthy diet of cutters, splitters and curveballs during that sequence.
Each time, Caglianone was ready. He fouled off seven pitches during the at-bat before earning a free pass.
“I think, honestly, I kind of just saw all he had,” Caglianone said. “I got to see the shape of some pitches multiple times with the curveball and the splitter. ... It was a good at-bat.
“I love those type of ABs, you know? You are kind of playing chess with each other. So carrying that over to the next couple of ABs was pretty important.”
Eovaldi was able to avoid potential trouble. He held the Royals hitless through four innings, the dam breaking only when Caglianone took him deep in the fifth.
Eovaldi left a curveball over the plate and Caglianone hammered his seventh homer into the right-field seats. The blast traveled 421 feet and helped KC halve its two-run deficit.
“Getting us on the board when it was 2-0 was big,” Quatraro said. “Just to get something, some sign of life there.”
Caglianone has now hit safely in 14 of his last 21 games. And he wasn’t done with the Rangers’ pitching staff on Tuesday night.
In the sixth, he capped a four-run inning with his second homer of the night — this time off Rangers left-handed reliever Jalen Beeks.
Beeks was summoned precisely for that lefty-on-lefty matchup. In his career, Caglianone has struggled against left-handed pitching, with a .195 batting average in 122 plate appearances.
Not this time.
Caglianone ambushed an 88.8 mph changeup and sent the baseball 431 feet into the Kauffman Stadium fountains.
The Royals registered five hits against Eovaldi and Beeks in the sixth. Carter Jensen started it with a leadoff double. Then, Bobby Witt Jr. moved him to third base before Maikel Garcia hit an RBI triple to tie the game at 2.
Vinnie Pasquantino gave the Royals the lead with an RBI double off the outfield wall — the 100th double of his career.
“I think it goes back to Bobby’s at-bat,” Pasquantino said. “I think that’s the perfect example of what this team needs to do.”
On this night, everything seemed to set up Caglianone. The 23-year-old now has his second two-homer game as a major-leaguer. And in a nice coincidence, the other was also against the Rangers — on June 19, 2025 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
“He’s been good,” Pasquantino said of Caglianone. “He’s doing a really nice job of controlling the strike zone. He’s not swinging at the first pitch every single time. He’s OK with hitting with two strikes. I think there’s a hitter in there that’s coming out now, which is nice to see.”
The Royals improved to 28-39. It was their sixth victory in eight games after concluding a 10-game road trip on Sunday in Minneapolis.
Royals starter Stephen Kolek received a no-decision. He allowed two runs on eight hits after returning from the family medical emergency list.
“It’s been a rollercoaster of a week for me,” Kolek said. “But praise God that we’re here today and all things are good. Everybody’s doing great. So just happy we were able to make it back today, battle through this one and end up with a win.”
The Rangers scored their first run on Jake Burger’s RBI single. The Royals committed two defensive errors in the fourth inning, allowing Evan Carter to score the visitors’ second run.
Texas (33-33) added its third and final run in the seventh. Evan Carter recorded an RBI groundout after Joc Pederson reached with a one-out triple.
Royals right-hander Alex Lange, the Lee’s Summit native, pitched the ninth for his fourth of the season.
“Anything I can do to help the Kansas City Royals win a baseball game is what I’m here for,” Lange said. “It’s pretty surreal. ... This team means a lot to me. To be a part of it, and to represent not only this community, this city, this organization and the guys in this locker room, is pretty sweet. So it’s been a lot of fun and a great season so far.”
What’s next: Royals right-hander Seth Lugo (2-4, 3.91 ERA) will start on Wednesday night opposite Rangers lefty MacKenzie Gore (4-5, 4.23 ERA) with first pitch set for 6:40 p.m. Central Time at Kauffman Stadium.
This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 9:27 PM.
