White Sox sluggers jump on Brad Keller early as Royals are shut out, drop 2nd straight
The cold, soggy majesty of a Chicago White Sox home opener proved enough to overwhelm the Kansas City Royals and ace starting pitcher Brad Keller.
Well, it wasn’t all the home-opener energy for the White Sox that did in Keller and his teammates. A pair of 420-foot-plus bombs in the first inning also had quite an impact.
Keller gave up three runs in the first inning and scuffled his way through a second consecutive shaky start as the Royals lost back-to-back games for the first time this season. The latest slip-up came in the form of a 6-0 loss to the White Sox on Thursday evening in front of an announced 8,207 at Guaranteed Rate Field in the first game of a three-game series.
Keller has now allowed 10 runs on 15 hits and five walks in 4 2/3 innings in his two starts this season.
“We believe that he’s going to be the pitcher that we know he can be,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Keller. “We watched signs of that all through spring training. You never want to get too far ahead of yourself. Right now, it’s two outings that didn’t go anything like he wanted them to go. He’s going to have to make those adjustments and jump right back in there.
“As I told him as he was walking off the mound today, ‘We’ve got all the faith in the world in you. You’re going to get this figured out. You’re going to come back here and you’re going to lead this staff.’ That’s exactly what I want him believing.”
Thursday’s game started after a 2-hour, 12-minute rain delay, and the first several innings of the game featured varying intensities of rainfall.
The loss dropped the Royals to 3-3 this season. The teams have a scheduled day off Friday.
While Keller got roughed up early, White Sox starting pitcher Lance Lynn tossed a shutout. He struck out 11 and held the Royals to five hits without walking a batter.
It was his fourth career complete game and second shutout.
Meanwhile Keller didn’t make it through four innings — though his 3 1/3 innings on Thursday were more than double the length of his 1 1/3-inning start in the season opener against the Texas Rangers. He gave up four runs on six hits and three walks. He also struck out three.
Both Matheny and Keller pointed to a failure to establish his fastball as a major shortcoming in Keller’s performance.
“I think I’ve just got to get back into attack mode,” Keller said. “I’ve just gotta keep going at guys. I’ve just gotta kind of establish the fastball, especially on the inner half. I feel like I’ve gotten away from my strengths there and just kind of throwing fastballs away. I think I’ve just got to get back to doing what I did best in previous years, that’s pitching to the skinny part of the bat, getting weak contact and keeping the ball on the ground. I’m just trying to do too much right now.”
Keller recorded back-to-back outs to start his night, but then gave up a double lined into the right-center field gap by last year’s American League MVP Jose Abreu.
Keller then left a slider out over the middle third of the plate, and Yoan Moncada tagged it for a two-run home run that gave the White Sox a 2-0 edge and turned the ballpark into a party, as rain-soaked socially-distanced fans celebrated boisterously in the stands.
Just as the volume started to die down in the ballpark, the breakout star of the first week of the regular season, Yermín Mercedes, absolutely smashed another slider from Keller high and deep over the left-field wall an estimated 485 feet for a solo homer.
“I hung two sliders there in the first inning, it cost me three runs,” Keller said. “I made a good pitch to Abreu. Bad location. He’s a good hitter, inside-out for a double. Then I just hung a slider to the next two guys, and it hurt me. Then I just felt like I was battle mode the rest of the time. I felt like I got the first guy out and the second guy always seemed to get on.”
Two of Keller’s three strikeouts also came on his slider.
Mercedes’ 485-foot blast was the third-longest hit by a White Sox player at Guaranteed Rate Field behind Joe Borchard (504 feet) and Frank Thomas (495 feet)
The White Sox (4-4) added another run in the second on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Luis Robert to take a 4-0 advantage before the Royals recorded their first hit of the day.
Keller’s night ended after he walked White Sox No. 9 hitter Danny Mendick with one out in the fourth. Keller lost Mendick after having him in a 2-2 count.
Right-hander Kyle Zimmer pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings in relief of Keller. Zimmer got out of the fourth with the help of a great diving stop by shortstop Nicky Lopez, a native of nearby Naperville, Illinois.
While flat and face down on the ground, Lopez flipped to second baseman Whit Merrifield in time to get a force out at second to end the inning.
Adam Eaton’s bases-loaded two-run single against Royals reliever Carlos Hernández in the sixth inning gave the White Sox their final margin of victory.
Lynn, became the first pitcher in American League history to throw a shutout with 10 or more strikeouts and no walks in his team’s home opener.
The most-recent White Sox complete game in a home opener was back in 1985, and the last shutout by a White Sox pitcher in a home opener came in 1976.
“I felt like he’s got quite a few pitches that come out pretty much looking the same,” said Royals outfielder Michael A. Taylor, who went 1 for 3. “That can make it tough. He was around the zone just about all night, mixing speeds and pitches. He threw the ball well. I felt like we had some good at-bats, but just not at the right times.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2021 at 8:27 PM with the headline "White Sox sluggers jump on Brad Keller early as Royals are shut out, drop 2nd straight."
