Royals lose a heartbreaker as Indians win with second straight walk-off homer against KC
Forget the rabbit, Kansas City Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez pulled two crucial outs from his hat in the eighth inning on what momentarily appeared to be a failed rundown.
To the shock of spectators on and off the field — pitcher Brad Keller was bewildered and Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona let his furor overflow until he got ejected — Perez collected two outs and wiped away an earlier defensive miscue that had set the Indians up in a great position to potentially take the lead.
Alas, the Indians quickly stole back whatever positive vibes, karma or good luck the Royals had generated. That all got replaced by a bitter loss in the matter of one swing by Bobby Bradley in the bottom of the ninth.
Bradley hit the second walk-off homer in consecutive days and handed the Royals a 2-1 loss on Friday night in front of an announced crowd of 21,395 in the second game of their four-game set at Progressive Field.
The Royals (36-52) have now lost three in a row with the bullpen giving up the decisive runs in the final third of the game.
“It’s tough on our club when they hang in there on a game that was really just one dimensional with the pitching,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We just didn’t get a whole lot going. Fortunately, (Jorge) Soler was able to give us an opportunity to go into that ninth inning and try to make something happen.”
The Royals were in danger of getting shut out and making Keller a hard-luck loser despite having allowed only one run.
That looked like an increasingly-real possibility with the Indians (44-42) leading 1-0 until Soler smashed a solo home run 427-feet to center field in the top of the eighth.
Soler’s home run, his seventh of the season and his first since June 10, marked the first allowed this season by Indians reliever Emmanuel Clase, who features a fastball that reaches speeds greater than 100 mph.
Perez’s heads-up play came after a communication failure between left fielder Andrew Benintendi and center fielder Michael A. Taylor allowed a ball hit to left-center field by Daniel Johnson to drop in for a hit. Then Taylor threw wildly in an attempt to catch Johnson making the turn at first base.
Taylor’s throwing error put Johnson on second base with no outs in a tie game. The next batter, Cesar Hernandez, singled to right field to put runners on the corners with the go-ahead run on third base.
With the infield playing in, Amed Rosario then hit the ball on a hop to Royals shortstop Nicky Lopez. Lopez threw home to Perez with the lead runner Johnson stuck halfway between home and third base.
Instead of throwing to third baseman Hunter Dozier to tag Johnson out, Perez chased Johnson back to third base just as the trail runner Hernandez attempted to advance to third.
With both men occupying the same base, the lead runner Johnson had the right to the base and Hernandez was out. Perez initially tagged both Johnson and Hernandez.
Then Perez immediately tagged Johnson again when he came off the base in the confusion of both runners staking their claim. The fact that Johnson came off the base and was tagged after Hernandez had been ruled out meant Johnson was also then out.
The Royals got two outs on the play and wiped out both of the lead runners. Matheny said he planned to challenge the ruling if it had been called any other way.
“Salvy did a great job tagging the rear runner and then waiting to see if the other guy comes off,” Matheny said. “That’s kind of textbook what we would practice all the way back in spring training. It just takes a very headsy player to be able to work it out when so much is happening at one time. Obviously, that’s a huge momentum shift.”
Keller admitted being confused about how the Royals got two outs.
“I’ve never seen that play happen before,” Keller said. “I think my jaw was on the ground the whole time. It’s funny because I‘ve been playing baseball my whole life and I still didn’t even know the rule. I literally had to ask Whit (Merrifield). Whit’s standing next to me, and it’s like ‘All right. How is that two outs? I have no idea.’”
There was no mistaking the play was huge in stifling the Indians’ hopes of taking the lead.
Keller then walked Jose Ramirez, the last batter he faced. With Rosario and Ramirez on base, Royals left-handed reliever Jake Brentz came on and struck out Franmil Reyes, who hit Thursday night’s walk-off home run for the Indians, to end the inning.
“I knew Brad went out there and did one heck of a job tonight,” Brentz said. “My mindset was keep the score right where it was at and pick him up. He had those two men on base. All I needed to do was go pick him up. My mindset was just go out there and make pitches and get the team back in the dugout.”
The Royals got a leadoff double from Benintendi to start the top of the ninth, but they could not push the run across when the heart of their batting lineup — Perez, Carlos Santana and Ryan O’Hearn — went down in order.
One batter into the bottom of the ninth, Brentz fell victim to Bradley’s homer on a 1-2 slider. Brentz joined Scott Barlow and Greg Holland who were tagged with losses in each of the two respective previous outings.
“I had Bradley in a good spot and just didn’t execute that pitch, left it up a little bit,” Brentz said. “It’s all part of the game. I’ve got to execute that better and probably have a much better result.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 9:02 PM with the headline "Royals lose a heartbreaker as Indians win with second straight walk-off homer against KC."
