Kansas City Royals Blow Golden Opportunity

Sep 27, 2014; Chicago, IL, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) scores in the ninth inning against the Chicago White Sox at US Cellular Field. Mandatory Credit: Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

The Kansas City Royals blew a golden opportunity to pull into a tie atop the A.L. Central by losing to the White Sox 5-4 in Chicago Saturday night.

The Twins did Kansas City a big favor by mashing the Tigers 12-3 in Detroit, but the Royals were not able to take full advantage of the opportunity due to 3 home runs by Chicago—including a 1st-inning 3-run shot by certain rookie-of-the-year Jose Abreu.

The loss drops the Royals to 88-73 with 1 more regular season game to play. The Royals still trail the Tigers by a single game.

The Boys in Blue need a win on Sunday, combined with a loss by Detroit, to force a playoff for the A.L. Central title on Monday.

On the Mound

Danny Duffy just didn’t have it Saturday afternoon. The White Sox battered him for 4 runs, including 2 home runs, in 2 innings. He allowed 5 hits,1 walk, and 4 runs with with no strikeouts. Duffy took his 12th loss of the season (9-12).

Louis Coleman entered in the 3rd and pitched 2.0 innings of scoreless relief with 2 strikeouts.

Brandon Finnegan relieved Coleman in the 5th and notched 2 outs, while giving up 1 hit and 1 walk with 1 strikeout.

Jason Frasor notched the final out of the 5th and pitched a scoreless 6th.

Tim Collins relieved Frasor in the 7th and gave up what turned out to be the winning run on backup catcher Josh Phegley’s 2nd solo shot of the day (3). The Royals are doing something wrong with the guy, since the September callup now has 3 home runs in 2 days against Kansas City pitching.

Kelvin Herrera pitched a scoreless 8th inning, allowing 1 walk and recording 1 strikeout.

At the Plate

The Royals fell behind 3-0 in the 1st inning and kept chipping away the rest of the day. The Royals scored their first run in the 3rd inning on Nori Aoki‘s fielder’s choice that drove in Mike Moustakas to make the score 3-1.

Kansas City scored their scored their 2nd run in the 7th on Salvador Perez‘s solo home run (17) to pull within 4-2.

Lorenzo Cain‘s 8th inning RBI single drove in Alcides Escobar to cut the deficit back to 2 runs at 5-3.

In the 9th, the Royals rally fell 1 run short after Mike Moustakas hit an RBI single to score Alex Gordon. However, Escobar grounded out with the tying run at 1st base to end the game.

This and That

Alcides Escobar extended his hitting streak to 8 games.

Nori Aoki extended his hitting streak to 7 games.Th

Lorenzo Cain extended his hitting streak to 8 games.

The White Sox honored veteran slugger Paul Konerko on Saturday, who is retiring at the end of the year after 16 seasons in Chicago.

KC Kingdom Player of the Game

Reliever Louis Coleman gets our nod for 2 innings of scoreless relief of Danny Duffy that stabilized the Royals staff and kept KC in what turned out to be a 1-run game.