Mondesi tied a club record, but Royals couldn’t dig out of early hole against Tigers
Shortstop Adalberto Mondesi is enjoying one of the hottest stretches of any hitter in franchise history, but that alone wasn’t enough to keep the Royals’ win streak alive Saturday night.
Mondesi had a hand in all three of the Royals’ runs in a 4-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers at Kauffman Stadium. Mondesi went 2 for 3 with a double, a home run and two RBIs, while Whit Merrifield went 3 for 5 with a double, but KC fell by a run in its second-to-last game of this pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
After Royals rookie right-hander Carlos Hernandez gave up four runs (three earned) in the first 1 2/3 innings, veteran left-hander Mike Montgomery steadied the ship and kept the Royals (25-34) within striking distance.
The Royals had activated Montgomery from the injured list Wednesday. Montgomery, one of the club’s projected starting pitchers heading into this season, made just one start — against the Tigers in Detroit — this season before he went on the IL and eventually moved to the 45-day IL with a lat strain.
“It was huge for me,” Montgomery said of being active to finish the season. “Obviously, the last month-and-a-half for me has been tough. In Arizona, I got a lot of good care, and a lot of good people who helped me get through that injury. I couldn’t get built up fully the way I wanted to, but I’m glad they had me come out here and get a couple innings when they could because I wanted to end the year on a positive note. I think I was able to do that.”
Montgomery pitched a scoreless inning of relief on Wednesday against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Saturday, he came in and pitched 2 1/3 scoreless and allowed one hit and one walk and struck out three.
“We needed a little bit of length,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I don’t know how we were going to make it through, to be honest, if he doesn’t get us 2 1/3 right there. He was making good pitches too. You could tell they were having trouble picking up the slider. He looked really good against their left-handed hitters, giving us a chance to then pass it off.”
The Royals continued to honor left fielder Alex Gordon, who was to play his final game Sunday. He announced earlier in the week that he’ll retire after 14 major-league seasons — all with the Royals.
The groundskeeping crew at Kauffman Stadium cut Gordon’s jersey number (4) into the left-field grass, and Gordon’s teammates — with the exception of active pitchers who aren’t allowed to have a foreign substance on their uniforms — and members of the coaching staff had a pine-tar strip across the back of their jersey over their last names.
Former Royals third baseman and current Cincinnati infielder Mike Moustakas played with a pine-tar strip across his name in the Reds-Twins game in Minnesota Saturday night. The San Diego Padres also tweeted out a photo of former Royals Eric Hosmer, Timmy Hill and Matt Strahm with the pine-tar strip on the backs of their uniforms.
Fittingly, Gordon stopped the bleeding in Saturday’s first inning. Hernandez gave up three runs and the Tigers were going for more when Gordon fielded a single by Derek Hill, his first career hit, and made a strong, accurate one-hop throw to the plate to put out Austin Romine. Gordon ranks second in club history in outfield assists behind Amos Otis’ 119.
Mondesi’s homer in his first at-bat made the score 3-1. Mondesi doubled his next time up and walked in the fifth to tie a club record by reaching base in 11 consecutive plate appearances (nine hits, two walks). He joined Steve Braun, Joe Randa and Otis with that distinction.
Mondesi’s RBI double in the third drove in Merrifield, and Mondesi scored on Maikel Franco’s RBI single. Mondesi finished one hit shy of tying Randa’s club record for consecutive at-bats with a hit. Mondesi’s strikeout in the seventh inning snapped his streak at nine.
After Montgomery’s scoreless outing, Jake Newberry (two innings), Josh Staumont (two innings) and Tyler Zuber (one inning) combined to pitch five scoreless innings.
The Royals had the tying run on base in the bottom of the ninth but weren’t able to extend the game.
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 10:46 PM with the headline "Mondesi tied a club record, but Royals couldn’t dig out of early hole against Tigers."
