CLEVELAND -- A fastball that was supposed to be up-and-in to C.J. Kayfus, Cleveland’s No. 9 hitter, instead landed at the bottom of the zone and directly into Kayfus’ bat as the rookie connected with it, sent it 425 feet out to right-center field and delivered the biggest swing of momentum into the Guardians’ dugout.
Thus, the self-described best day of Kayfus’ life turned out to be one of the Royals’ worst.
Kayfus’ home run off Royals reliever John Schreiber in the bottom of the eighth inning gave Kansas City a 3-2 heartbreaker of a loss on Thursday night at Progressive Field, flying out of Cleveland with a series loss and more ground to make up in the standings.
The Royals (74-73) are five games back of an American League Wild Card spot following the Mariners' (79-68) win over the Angels on Thursday. Two teams sit ahead of Kansas City, too, with Texas (77-70), which is in the midst of a tight AL West race, and Cleveland (75-71), which holds the season tiebreaker over Kansas City, gaining ground on the Royals this week.
“Our road is very difficult right now,” said Vinnie Pasquantino, who hit his 30th home run of the season to give the Royals a two-run lead in the first inning. “It’s not over, though. We’ve got to do whatever we can to get some wins and try to stack them together. We’re at the point where we have to get hot. That’s the only way that it’s going to happen. We need some things to go our way. We need to score more runs.
“We need to get hot, plain and simple. We’ve got 15 to go. Starts tomorrow. But we’ve got 15 left to win 15 ballgames, basically.”
Their path doesn’t get easier; the Royals head to Philadelphia on Friday for a three-game set and then back to Kauffman Stadium for the final homestand of the regular season against the Mariners and Blue Jays.
The road ahead makes the series loss in Cleveland all the more crushing. The Royals led Thursday’s game for 7 1/2 innings. Their starter was excellent. Stephen Kolek dominated a Guardians lineup of all lefties for 6 2/3 innings, allowing just one run on three hits.
In three starts as a Royal, Kolek has a 1.83 ERA.
“Historically, lefties have been a challenge for me,” Kolek said. “I’ve been working on developing new weapons, and to be able to execute them at a pretty good clip tonight, to see the plan of attack that we had, [that] felt pretty good.”
Schreiber recorded the final out of the seventh after Kolek walked his final batter. In the eighth, Schreiber had two strikes on Bo Naylor, who then poked a single through a hole and into right field.
Kayfus crushed his third career homer moments later.
Both were lefties, but the Royals have confidence in Schreiber against lefties -- his .227/.292/.375 slash line against them this year backs that up. After a bullpen game Wednesday in which Lucas Erceg threw two innings, manager Matt Quatraro was hoping for one-plus out of Schreiber on Thursday before likely turning to Carlos Estévez for the save situation in the ninth.
He got the one-plus from Schreiber; the Royals never saw the bottom of the ninth inning.
“Missed a couple of pitches, [and they] did some damage,” Schreiber said. “It’s frustrating. I haven’t been coming up in big spots the last few series. Hurting the team.”
Royals pitching really had no margin for error. The offense fizzled after the first. Guardians starter Gavin Williams was shaky in his first inning, throwing 31 pitches, allowing the homer to Pasquantino and walking two batters.
Williams retired 17 of his final 22 batters after Pasquantino’s homer. The Royals recorded one hit in the final three innings off four Guardians relievers.
The Royals were only down by one run in the ninth, and they got their leadoff batter on when reliever Cade Smith hit Jonathan India with a pitch. Pinch-runner Tyler Tolbert never stole second like he did Wednesday night.
“We could have taken a chance,” Quatraro said. “But Smith’s a 1.1 [second] to the plate [guy]. It’s not a good proposition. We could have taken that chance. Then if he gets thrown out, you got no chance to flip the lineup over.”
Kyle Isbel struck out on a foul bunt, with the bunt sign coming from the dugout as the Royals wanted to get Tolbert into scoring position. But all three pitches Isbel attempted to bunt on were rising fastballs.
Pinch-hitter Nick Loftin struck out. Mike Yastrzemski flied out to end the game.
“Whole team’s frustrated with how we did this series,” Schreiber said. “Just got to go into Philly and get some energy and kick some butt.”