Brad Keller victimized by 7-run inning as Kansas City Royals lose series to the Twins
.jpg "Kansas City Royals’ pitcher Brad Keller throws against the Minnesota Twins during the first inning of a baseball game, Sunday, May 2, 2021, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Stacy Bengs)")
Staring pitcher Brad Keller and the Kansas City Royals certainly wouldn’t have dreamed of the scenario that played out Sunday afternoon as the ideal way to wrap up their road trip.
Keller allowed seven runs, just two earned, on six hits, a walk, a wild pitch and two hit batters in 4 1/3 innings as the Royals lost the rubber match of their series with the Minnesota Twins, 13-4, in front of an announced 9,997 at Target Field.
Keller (2-3) gave up all seven runs in the third inning.
“Brad just had trouble finding his location,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “Then when he did make some pitches, we had a couple blips that ended up hurting him. We know that the way he throws, we’re going to need to make plays behind him. That snowballed and made it worse than what it was. But the guys showed some life getting us close, unfortunately we weren’t able to hold it there.”
With the loss, the Royals finished their nine-game road trip 6-3. After a four-game sweep in Detroit and a split in Pittsburgh, the Royals (16-10) dropped two of three to the Twins (10-16).
Third baseman Hunter Dozier homered, doubled and had three RBIs in Sunday’s game, while Carlos Santana collected a team-high three hits. Andrew Benintendi had two hits and scored a run. Dozier also committed two errors which led to Keller’s five unearned runs.
In six starts this season, Keller has pitched five innings or more just twice. He came into Sunday having posted a quality start (six innings, two runs) against the Tigers on Monday.
Keller got hit hard in his early starts and then had a start against the Los Angeles Angels in which defensive miscues cost him greatly.
Sunday’s outing combined both worlds.
The Twins smacked four extra-base hits against Keller, including a pair of home runs, yet the defensive “blips,” as Matheny called them, put more pressure on Keller.
“The name of this game is being consistent,” Keller said. “In order to stay here and pitch here for a while, you’ve got to be consistent day-in and day-out, start-in and start-out. It’s really frustrating because I feel like I’m trying to build off of the last start and get kicked in the teeth again. It sucks.”
Keller’s first pitch of the game hit Twins leadoff hitter Luis Arraez, but Keller retired the next six batters.
Then the wheels came off the bus in the seven-run third inning. It marked the Twins’ largest-scoring inning since they scored seven runs against the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 20, 2019.
After Keller hit his second batter of the day, Andrelton Simmons crushed a 1-1 fastball into the upper deck in left field for a two-run home run to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.
With two men on after a single and a fielding error by Dozier on a ball scorched to third by Josh Donaldson, the speedster Byron Buxton hit a slow bouncer to Dozier.
Dozier rushed a throw that first baseman Carlos Santana couldn’t handle even after coming off the bag. The throwing error allowed the lead runner to score and the trail runner to advance to third base.
“Buxton is fast,” Dozier said. “I should have never even thrown it, but I was just trying to make a play. You can’t do anything about that one. I should have held onto that one. Buxton is too fast. I should’ve known that. So both my fault.”
Following an intentional walk to Twins designated hitter Nelson Cruz, Alex Kirilloff added to the scoring with a sacrifice fly to right field. Mitch Garver capped the scoring in the inning with a three-run home run, the second homer of the inning off of Keller.
“You can’t give in,” Keller said. “I mean, errors happen. It’s part of the game. I can’t just bank on unearned runs. As we saw today, seven runs puts us behind really early. We tried to fight back, but seven runs is a lot to come back from. Earned or unearned, nonetheless, it’s still tough. ...
“Giving up a home run right there was definitely 100 percent on me, just missed location. I felt like that’s the way it was all day. Even if it was in the zone, it was not exactly where I wanted it to go. The burden is still on me, 100 percent.”
The Royals cut into the deficit on Dozier’s three-run home run in the fourth inning, and they pulled within three runs, 7-4, on Whit Merrifield’s RBI double in the fifth inning.
However, they got no closer the rest of the day.
Kris Bubic gave up two runs in relief of Keller, and the Twins added another run against reliever Scott Barlow. Kirilloff added a three-run homer in the eighth off Jake Newberry to get the Twins to 13 runs. Kirilloff became the first Twins rookie to homer in three consecutive games since Jake Cave did so in 2018.
“It was a very good road trip for us,” Matheny said. “We did a lot of things well. Just this one and the first one here too. Both of those, I don’t think are very indicative of the club we’ve been all season. You’ve just got to let these go and now get ready for a good homestand.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2021 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Brad Keller victimized by 7-run inning as Kansas City Royals lose series to the Twins."
