Royals drop third straight to Rangers, lose 6 of 7 on road trip
Often you can trace missed scoring opportunities back to that one missed pitch. The pitcher just a hair too high or that catches slightly more of the plate than intended, it’s a game-changer. More often than not this weekend, the Royals missed that pitch.
Royals starting pitcher Brad Keller didn’t have a dominant performance on the mound, but he fought and clawed for seven innings to keep the Royals in a position to come away with a win.
Unfortunately for Keller, Rangers right-hander Adrian Sampson handcuffed the Royals so thoroughly that Keller needed to be near-perfect on Sunday afternoon.
Sampson, who made his 11th career start in the majors, held the Royals to one run on eight hits. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out a career-best 11 as the Royals dropped the series finale against the Texas Rangers 5-1 in front of an announced 21,891 in Globe Life Park.
“When you miss mistakes, these guys are good up here, so it’s going to be tough to hit their pitches,” Royals infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield said. “It seemed like all series we didn’t do a good job of hitting balls that split the plate. When that happens, you’re forced to battle against good strike-to-ball sliders or fastballs on the corner.”
The Royals struck out 47 times and walked seven times in the four-game series. They go into their day off on Monday having lost three consecutive games and coming off a 1-6 road trip.
The big opportunity for the Royals on Sunday came in the fifth inning when they loaded the bases while down 1-0 with no outs.
Cam Gallagher singled to left field, and then Terrance Gore and Billy Hamilton followed with back-to-back bunt singles. Merrifield lined out to third base, Adalberto Mondesi struck out swinging on a high changeup and Alex Gordon froze on a curveball called for strike three.
“That was a big point in the game, no doubt,” Merrifield said. “It’s a lie to say that doesn’t kill momentum, but good teams find a way to bounce back and create a different momentum. We didn’t do a good job of that today.”
Merrifield pointed to a missed pitch in his at-bat, a slider “that couldn’t have been more in the middle of the plate” that he fouled off. That forced him to have to hit two-seam fastball off the plate and smack it right at the third baseman.
The Royals left 10 men on base in the game, and they were 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position with one of those hits coming on a bunt single.
Cheslor Cuthbert (3-for-4) was the only Royals hitter with a multi-hit game, and Mondesi hit his league-leading eighth triple of the season. The lone run came on Jorge Soler’s solo home run in the sixth inning, his 15th of the season. Soler’s homer made it 3-1.
Keller (3-7) allowed three runs on nine hits in seven innings, and he struck out six. After having struggled mightily with command this season, Keller has walked just one in his last 13 innings (two starts). He finished the day having thrown 75 of his 100 pitches for strikes.
“I thought Keller was fantastic,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “No walks. His strike-to-ball ratio was off the charts. … He was on the attack. He made a couple of little mistakes for minor damage.”
Trailing 1-0 but with runners on second and third, Keller faced a potential turning point in the third inning. He got to a 3-2 count against Rangers left-handed hitting outfielder Nomar Mazara in the middle of what was ultimately a 10-pitch at-bat.
Yost popped out of the dugout and strolled to the mound for a conference with Keller, Gallagher and the rest of the infielders.
“The message was change your signs because they were relaying signs from second base,” Yost said. “So I wanted them to make sure that we set up late and that we changed out signs every pitch if we needed to.”
Keller came out of that chit-chat and got Mazara to ground out sharply to first base, giving the runners no shot to advance, and then got an inning-ending ground ball to shortstop by Hunter Pence.
The Rangers scored their second and third runs in the bottom half of the fifth when Keller uncorked a wild pitch with a runner on third, and Mazara hit an RBI single to left field.
Keller has given up one extra-base hit in his past two starts. Opponents have hit 18 singles and one double in those 13 innings.
“It’s encouraging — not walking guys — but it’s frustrating whenever you give up hits that just kind of fall into place or ground balls that just find holes,” Keller said. “But as long as I’m inducing weak contact and going after guys that’s definitely encouraging to me.”
The Rangers tacked on a pair of runs in the eighth inning against relievers Scott Barlow and Jake Diekman (one run each).
This story was originally published June 2, 2019 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Royals drop third straight to Rangers, lose 6 of 7 on road trip."
