Royals take winning turn in I-70 finale with clutch hits, shutdown relief

KANSAS CITY -- It’s no secret that the Royals have struggled to muster up much offense through the first 48 games of the season.

But their bats did just enough on Sunday afternoon to salvage the finale of a three-game I-70 Series against the Cardinals in a 2-1 win at Kauffman Stadium.

It was Drew Waters’ pinch-hit triple in the seventh inning that sparked some offense for Kansas City, which scored on the very next pitch with Maikel Garcia’s RBI single off St. Louis reliever Chris Roycroft.

“It felt great, obviously,” Waters said. “You know anytime you come into a game, especially a tie game, at least the opportunities I’ve had to pinch-hit, I try to be aggressive and that’s kind of my game. I like to be aggressive and I like to be aggressive early. I got a fastball to hit and I was able to do something with it.”

It’s been a familiar theme for the Royals this season. The starting pitching has been stellar, but the bats have had a hard time putting runs on the board.

Michael Wacha allowed one run -- a homer to straightaway center field by Alec Burleson for his fourth of the season -- on eight hits over five innings to go with six strikeouts and no walks.

“There was some good stuff for sure and stuff we got to clean up,” Wacha said. “Overall, I thought me and Freddy [Fermin] got on a nice little page there and had a good mix, and were able to strand some runners out there and make pitches whenever we needed to. The defense played great behind me and I just tried to keep the guys in the game as long as I could, and we were able to score a couple runs there late.”

Wacha hadn’t allowed a long ball since April 15, while this was the 30th time in his past 32 starts that he hasn’t yielded more than three runs.

“The command of everything was pretty good,” Wacha said. “I felt like the fastball was to the corners and when I was trying to go down, it was down, and when I was trying to go up, it was up. I was able to mix in some good offspeed there and try to keep them off balance as much as I could.”

Kansas City’s bullpen combined to throw four scoreless innings behind John Schreiber, Daniel Lynch IV, Lucas Erceg and Carlos Estévez. Erceg went 1 2/3 innings and Estévez worked the ninth for his 13th save of the season.

“I mean what else can we say about the bullpen and the pitching staff as a whole,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “These guys they prepare, they’re super competitive, they want the ball in those big moments and they execute.”

But if the Royals want to stay competitive in the American League Central, their offense will have to improve. They have averaged 4.71 runs in day games this season, but couldn’t muster much in Sunday’s matinee.

After being shut out on Saturday night, Dairon Blanco got the Royals on the board with a two-out double that scored Hunter Renfroe in the bottom of the fourth inning to tie the game at 1.

“I mean those are huge hits with no margin for error,” Quatraro said. “It’s a 2-1 game, a two-strike, two-out double from Blanco and Drew, that’s a tough pinch-hit assignment, but he was ready to go, perfect spot. Getting on third with nobody out is about the best scenario we could’ve hoped for there.”

And with great pitching and low offensive production, chances are the Royals will be in lots of close games moving forward.

“Well the overwhelming majority of the games are going to be tight,” Quatraro said. “It’s hard to come by runs, not just lately, but when you got quality pitching like you’re facing, night in and night out, the majority of your games are going to be tight. We have to hang in there, you have to find a way to come up with that one and today we did, and we leaned on the pitching.

“There are going to be other nights where we lean on the hitting, but these guys, the effort they’ve been giving, the quality of their preparation has been awesome so to get the reward of the ‘W’ was big.”