Kansas City Royals Give Away Series in Detroit

The Kansas City Royals lose another road series. This time against rival, Detroit Tigers. Joakim Soria helps his former team take the series two games out of three.

The bullpen failed the Kansas City Royals Friday night. Kansas City received 5 1/3 solid innings from starter, Ian Kennedy. Kennedy struggled in the fifth inning allowing two guys on with one out. Ned Yost pulled him in favor of Luke Hochaver (Hoch).

Hochaver comes in and gets out of the sixth inning unscathed. The Royals had the lead going into the top of the seventh. The offense sputtered in the innings that followed scoring no runs against Verlander and the Tigers weak bullpen.

The bottom of the seventh was hard to watch. Hoch came back into the game and struggled to get guys out. He allowed the game tying home run to struggling hitter, Tyler Collins. Then he gave up a single and a walk while recording one out.

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Yost yanked Hoch out of the game for Joakim Soria. Soria gave up a walk to load the bases for Miguel Cabrera. Soria quickly put himself in a hole down three ball and no strikes. He then calmed down and struck out one of the best hitters in baseball.

Soria got ahead of the next batter, Victor Martinez, only to allow an infield single. He misplayed the ball off of his glove, giving the Tigers the go ahead runs. The Kansas City Royals offense stayed asleep the rest of the game resulting in a 4-2 loss on Friday night.

The struggle to win on the road continued Sunday afternoon at Comerica Park. “Russian Roulette” Yordano Ventura got the start for Kansas City. During the bottom of the sixth inning, Ventura gave up a should have been double, to Nick Castellanos. Paulo Orlando mishandled the ball allowing the runner to advance to third for a triple with two outs in the inning.

A few pitches later, Ventura spiked the ball in the dirt in front of Salvador Perez (Salvy). The ball got away from Salvy giving the Tigers the tying run. Ventura went onto pitch seven solid innings for the Royals but couldn’t avoid the big mistake for the second straight game.

Kelvin Herrera worked out of a two out double by Castellanos to leave the game tied at two going into the ninth inning. The Kansas City Royals offense couldn’t score a run on Detroit’s closer, Francisco Rodriguez (better known as K-Rod). Gordon, Orlando and Cuthbert all went back to the dugout quietly.

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In the bottom of the ninth, Yost called in Soria to hold Detroit’s offense down to get the game into extra innings. Unfortunately, this move cost the Royals the game.

Soria got the inning started off badly. He gave up a single to Tyler Collins. The next batter, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, got the game winning two-run shot on a 1-0 pitch left right over the plate by “Jack”. Ball game.

The Kansas City Royals are now 17 and 32 on the road this season. Kansas City has been out scored 158 to 213 on the road.  The run differential away from the friendly confines of Kauffman Stadium is now negative 55.

Next: KC Royals: Ten Greatest Moments In Royals History

The Royals will need to win on the road much more often if the team plans on making it back to the postseason this year. Injuries devastated the team this season but a long winning streak would put the Royals back in the hunt for October..