The Royals scored two runs on one really wild pitch in Sunday’s game
The Royals’ plan always has been to play aggressive and take extra bases when possible.
That willingness to push the envelope paid off handsomely in Sunday’s 11-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Kauffman Stadium.
The Royals led 2-0 with two outs in the first inning and third baseman Kelvin Gutierrez was at the plate with Hunter Dozier on second base and Maikel Franco at third.
A pitch from Pirates starter Chad Kuhl crossed up catcher John Ryan Murphy, who missed the ball. It hit umpire Jeremy Rehak in the mask and caromed away. Franco scored easily and so did Dozier.
“You know we can push it too far, over aggressiveness,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “For the most part what we’re telling guys is keep going and the coaching staff, especially the base coaches, will be able to slow you down if we need to. But always be thinking about the next base.”
That was the case on the two-run wild pitch:
“If Hunter wasn’t thinking about home by the time he took off from second there’s no chance he scores,” Matheny said. “And that was a pivotal point of the game when we didn’t know exactly which way this thing was going to go.
“Every 90 feet is so important but if you don’t get your leads right, if you don’t have your secondaries, and then you don’t attack the next base aggressively, you have no chance of taking the extra one. So it’s something I think this team’s done well all season.”
Dozier gave credit to third base coach Vance Wilson
“I was kind of listening to Vance. I saw the ball kick off, and Vance was telling me to go, go, go, so I just listened to him and ran as hard as I can,” Dozier said. “I didn’t really know how close it was going to be but ended up not being very close.”
