KANSAS CITY -- Michael Lorenzen hadn’t thrown a curveball all night, so with two outs and two strikes against Jo Adell in the sixth inning Tuesday, Lorenzen thought the breaker was the pitch he needed to get out of the inning and preserve the Royals’ one-run lead.
It did not go as planned.
Adell crushed the curveball for a two-run home run, a game-flipping long ball that gave the Angels a lead and eventually handed the Royals a 5-1 series-opening loss at Kauffman Stadium.
“Not good enough, really,” Lorenzen said of his quality start, in which he threw six innings and allowed two runs. “That’s it. We didn’t come out with a win. We had a lead and I gave it up.
“... You hope you’re saving that, have that in the back pocket. Maybe [he’s] sitting soft there, and I kind of gave him what he was looking for speed-wise. It’ll keep you up at night. I’ll roll over in my bed a couple times tonight thinking about possibly making a different pitch.”
The positive news in a bad loss for the Royals (70-68) is that they remained 2 1/2 games back of an American League Wild Card spot after the Mariners (73-66) also lost to the Rays in Tampa on Tuesday. Kansas City stayed one game behind Texas (72-68) as the first team out of playoff contention as well, with the Rangers falling to the D-backs on Tuesday night. But now the Rays (69-69) are slowly creeping back into contention, just a game behind the Royals.
Welcome to September baseball, where everything is heightened. And when teams make mistakes or don’t capitalize on opportunities, it stings much more.
“It’s a gut punch, for sure,” first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino said. “You kind of come into this game and you need it. You need all of them. We’ve got 24 left, right? You want 24 of them. … Got to look in the mirror tonight for myself personally and see how I can be better tomorrow. Because we need these wins, or else the season is going to be shorter than we want it to be. We got to get going, but it starts with tomorrow.”
Lorenzen was working with a slim margin for error with the Royals’ one-run lead, the only run they would end up scoring against lefty Mitch Farris in his MLB debut. Farris hadn’t pitched above the Double-A level before Tuesday, but 24-year-old began his big league career with five innings of one-run ball in Kansas City.
The Royals managed four hits total. They squandered opportunities, like when Kyle Isbel got picked off at first base in the fifth. A Halos bullpen that has the third-worst ERA (4.80) in MLB allowed just one hit in four innings. When lefty reliever Reid Detmers came in for the seventh inning, manager Matt Quatraro didn’t dip into his bench, opting instead to leave the left-on-left matchups in the lineup. Mike Yastrzemski grounded out and Adam Frazier flied out, although Quatraro noted that Detmers has had neutral splits this year: .683 OPS vs. right-handed batters and a .669 OPS vs. left-handed batters.
“Detmers is pretty neutral,” Quatraro said. “I think if there was someone -- a proven right-handed bat there, maybe we go to him. But Detmers is pretty equal on both sides.”
The Royals are carrying 14 position players now with expanded September rosters, but it skews very left-handed with Jonathan India (left wrist sprain) on the injured list. The two right-handed bats on Kansas City's bench Tuesday were backup catcher Luke Maile and Tyler Tolbert, who is used in pinch-running situations.
Former top prospect Jac Caglianone, who was activated from the IL on Monday, and No. 2 prospect catcher Carter Jensen, who made his debut Tuesday with a pinch-hit opportunity in the ninth, are both left-handed. Despite being young bats that are part of the Royals’ future, their playing time remains to be seen; Caglianone is blocked by Yastrzemski in right field, while Jensen is blocked by Salvador Perez and Maile on the depth chart. The 22-year-olds are going to play -- they just might not play every day.
“At this time of year, we feel like this is the best thing for both of them [Caglianone and Jensen] in their development,” Quatraro said. “... We feel like them being here in these meaningful games is very beneficial.”
Playing the matchups doesn’t matter as much, though, if the Royals can’t get the rest of their offense to click.
“You just show up and play and you try to win each every game,” Lorenzen said. “It’s pretty much it. You got to control what you can.”