Royals’ losing streak hits eight with 7-5 loss to White Sox

The idea rooted itself in Ned Yost’s mind sometime last week. This was before his Royals team found itself mired in a seven-game losing streak, before the offense recorded the quietest six-day stretch in franchise history, before Yost slid into a table at Carmine’s restaurant here in Chicago on Thursday night.

As Yost enjoyed a night off with his wife during the final stretch of a 10-game road trip, the idea remained somewhere in the recesses of his brain. After watching his team lose for seven straight days, Yost was ready: It was time to juggle the order of his lineup.

“Subtle changes,” Yost would say.

The Royals debuted the altered lineup on Friday night at U.S. Cellular Field, moving Whit Merrifield to the leadoff spot, sliding Alcides Escobar to the two-hole and swapping Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain in the middle of the lineup. The shuffling of pieces amounted to mere window dressing in a 7-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

So here we are: The Royals have lost eight straight games for the first time since May 29, 2013, a brutal stretch that resulted in franchise icon George Brett being hired as a temporary hitting coach. And in some ways, this three-city road trip has been just as horrid. Nine days ago, Kansas City sat a season-high eight games over .500 following a 6-0 home stand. On Friday, the Royals plunged back to 30-30, dead even for the season after 60 games.

“It just didn’t happen,” first baseman Eric Hosmer said.

The newfangled lineup did produce five runs against White Sox ace Chris Sale, including two solo homers from Hosmer. The output surpassed the total offense produced in the previous six games. Yet this night would be measured by another jarring statistic.

In perhaps his worst outing of the season, Royals starter Ian Kennedy gave up a career-high four homers in 5  2/3 innings, allowing seven earned runs. When White Sox catcher Alex Avila lined his second homer of the night into the outfield bar in right field in the sixth inning, the Royals had given up their 20th homer of this road trip.

Yes, 20 homers — in eight games. Fifteen of those homers have been clubbed off Royals starting pitchers; six have come against Kennedy, who saw his ERA rise above four (4.06) for the first time this season.

“It could be one of those cycles we’re going through,” Yost said. “If you look at the location of the pitches on three of the four homers, three were down in the zone.”

The Royals are indeed running through a down cycle. Yet all all season long, opponents have bombarded the Royals’ starting rotation with long balls. When the series began Friday, their starters had allowed an American League-leading 1.57 homers per nine innings. That number jumped again as the White Sox took advantage of windy conditions, a smaller-than-normal ballpark and a fly ball pitcher who struggled to finish off hitters.

“This place doesn’t help out if you’re a fly-ball pitcher,” Kennedy said. “But I didn’t make very good pitches — so it was a bad night.”

The night began to go south in the bottom of the third. Kennedy served up a two-run homer to Melky Cabrera on a 1-2 curveball, capping off a three-run inning. One inning later, Brett Lawrie and Alex Avila lifted back-to-back homers into the humid and breezy night, stretching the White Sox’s lead to 5-2.

Upon contact, Kennedy said, he turned and saw the flags flying above the stadium. The sight was not a pleasant one. Moments later, the balls had flown out of the stadium.

“I got two two strikes a lot,” Kennedy said. “I threw a lot of strikes [and] I feel like I wasn’t behind on guys — I just couldn’t put away guys.”

For five innings, the Royals’ only offense came from the bat of Hosmer, who deposited two opposite-field homers over the wall in left. Hosmer became just the fourth left-handed hitter to ever homer off Sale. He also became just the second player to homer twice in one game against the four-time All-Star.

“That guy, he’s just nasty,” Hosmer said. “Just flat-out nasty. You just try to be early, try to look for something out over the plate and let him do all the work.”

Salvador Perez would slice the White Sox’s lead to 5-3 in the top of the sixth, adding another solo homer off Sale. But Kennedy returned to the mound in the bottom half of the inning, allowing a second homer to Avila before exiting for reliever Luke Hochevar.

The way the final innings played out only intensified the frustration of the streak. The Royals nicked Sale for a season-high three homers and put up five runs. Their starting pitcher could not hold up his end of the bargain.

“We’re finally starting to get the offense going a little bit,” Yost said. “But tonight, one little mistake and it was going to leave the park.”

Two weeks after mounting three comebacks against the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals nearly pieced together another rally in the seventh. They scored two runs on a single from Escobar and a sacrifice fly Hosmer, trimming the lead to 7-5. But the White Sox bullpen held firm against the middle of the Royals’ order.

With runners at first and second, Chicago reliever Zach Putnam struck out Kendrys Morales and Perez. The latter strikeout included two controversial check-swing calls from first-base umpire Chris Guccione, which resulted in an ejection for hitting coach Dale Sveum, who protested from the dugout.

“My thoughts were that the first one wasn’t even close,” Yost said. “The second one was a little bit closer. You had one of our bigger guys at the plate in a crucial situation and don’t get the call.”

In the end, the Royals could only swallow hard and absorb another hard right. When the night was over, they had fallen to 11-23 on the road — the second worst mark in the American League — and they sat tied for third with the Detroit Tigers. So here we are, another series, another city, another loss in a road trip that has turned into a disaster.

“Ian has been throwing the ball well for us,” Hosmer said. “They put some good swings; they put themselves into good counts and took advantage of some big situations.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 10:26 PM with the headline "Royals’ losing streak hits eight with 7-5 loss to White Sox."