KANSAS CITY -- The Royals’ bullpen gates at Kauffman Stadium swung open eight times on Wednesday afternoon, a steady dose of relievers jogging to the mound one after another, inning after inning.
Together, they ended up making history.
Nine Royals relievers -- including opener Angel Zerpa -- tossed 10 scoreless innings in the Royals’ 1-0 walk-off win, tying a Major League record for pitchers used in a 10-inning shutout win in the Modern Era (since 1900). Cleveland also used nine pitchers against Detroit on Sept. 17, 2016.
The victory clinched the Royals’ third consecutive series win and second consecutive winning homestand after losing the previous four.
“A lot of grinders. A lot of animals out there,” Carlos Estévez said following his scoreless ninth inning. “They’re looking for it. They want the baseball. They want to go out there.”
Salvador Perez was the walk-off hero, lining an RBI single into right-center field in the bottom of the 10th inning for the Royals’ third hit in a game that saw very little offense.
But Perez knew where the credit belonged on Wednesday.
“Today was just about the bullpen,” Perez said. “I got the big hit to score that run and win the game, but what they did today was amazing.”
The bullpen game, caught by catcher Freddy Fermin, featured Zerpa for one-plus innings, Jonathan Bowlan for two and then one apiece from John Schreiber, Taylor Clarke, Hunter Harvey, Steven Cruz, Lucas Erceg, Estévez and Sam Long, who earned the win after navigating around runners on the corners with no outs in the 10th inning.
By the time Long entered, the ‘pen was fairly quiet. Thomas Hatch was the only reliever still out there.
“Makes me want to be in there even more,” Long said of watching one reliever after another jog to the mound and execute against a dangerous Braves lineup. “You want to carry that momentum if you get the ball. ... I was lucky enough to get it with a cool spot to be in and come out and just cap off an incredible bullpen game.”
Wednesday was truly a team effort in a stretch of heavy workload for Kansas City relievers. They covered 33 1/3 of the 56 total innings thrown this homestand, and the only reason the Royals were able to deploy nine of their 10 relievers in the ‘pen was because Thursday is a scheduled off-day.
Even still, Bowlan was the lone reliever manager Matt Quatraro felt OK about going two innings on Wednesday.
“And that was a stretch,” Quatraro said. “Just back up these last four days and how many pitches these guys have thrown, it doesn’t look that menacing because they have a day off in between, but that’s a big workload for these guys, especially when every pitch matters so much.”
But every pitch mattering, and every game mattering this time of year, is precisely why the Royals’ stable of arms was ready to go. Quatraro managed Wednesday like a must-win game. He could have gone to Hatch for bulk innings, but he deployed high-leverage arms early: Schreiber came in for the fourth inning because the heart of the Braves’ lineup -- Austin Riley, Michael Harris II and Marcell Ozuna -- was due up.
“I don’t care what inning it is, I just want to be able to contribute and put up a zero and help us win,” Schreiber said.
The Royals (53-55) are staying in the American League Wild Card mix, despite everything they have had to deal with so far this year, including a struggling offense and rash of injuries to the rotation. How the club continues to cover innings with just three true starters on the roster right now remains to be seen.
But Kansas City has gone 7-5 out of the All-Star break and 15-9 in July. After Wednesday’s game, the Royals moved to 3 1/2 games out of the third AL Wild Card spot. Every win is important.
“They knew what was coming,” Quatraro said of the ‘pen. “These guys want to win. They want to do whatever they can to help the team.”
Despite having thrown three of the past four days entering the series finale, both Estévez and Erceg -- the Royals’ two highest-leverage arms -- were adamant about being available. Erceg threw 20 pitches in Tuesday’s win and Estévez threw 22; they contributed 22 and 10 pitches across two scoreless innings on Wednesday.
“As soon as I went out there and finished playing catch this morning, I told them I was good to go,” Estévez said. “... I noticed they were kind of like, ‘Ah, man, I don’t know.’ But we’ve got an off-day tomorrow.
“Give me the baseball. We’re going to be fine.”