Royals’ power display Wednesday hadn’t been seen in Kansas City since 1964
This may sound strange, but I love looking at old baseball box scores. Pick a random game from a random season and you’ll often unearth some random but interesting notes.
For instance, the Kansas City A’s defeated the Cleveland Indians 9-3 on Aug. 30, 1964, and Baseball Reference’s box score shows Jose Tartabull had a pinch-hit single for KC. He’s the father of former Royals star Danny Tartabull.
Tartabull was pinch hitting for Ken Harrelson, who fans will recognize as the former Chicago White Sox announcer. The starting shortstop for the Indians that day: Dick Howser, who would later have a big impact on the Royals.
In that game, A’s center fielder Nelson Matthews and first baseman Jim Gentile both hit a pair of home runs. It would be the last time teammates from a Kansas City home team would have multi-homer games until Wednesday night.
That nugget was unearthed by baseball historian Doug Kern.
Catcher Salvador Perez and outfielder Franchy Cordero each hit two long home runs in the Royals’ 12-3 win over the Cardinals at Kauffman Stadium.
It’s been done before in Royals history as Fox Sports Kansas City Associate Producer Dave Holtzman tweeted:
It had just never been done at Kauffman Stadium until Wednesday. Here are the four homers and they traveled a combined 1,726 feet:
The Royals also won their first rubber game of the season. They had dropped six straight dating to last season.
“There’s something to be said about winning series and if we want to have the kind of sustained success that we believe we can have, you’re going to have to win series,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “Sometimes if you walk into game one thinking about winning a series, you’re too far ahead of yourself. You’ve just got to play today’s game. No better time than right now to get that figured out.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 9:50 AM.
