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ROYALS HEADLINES
Losing streak snapped at six; Ragans inches closer to return

By artoodeetoo
08/28/2025

8/25 -- White Sox walk-off: All-Star closer Carlos Estevez came in with a 4-1 lead and looking to lock down his 31st save of the season. With three-run leads this season, Estevez is nearly perfect, going 9-for-10 in those situations.

Unfortunately, that fell to 9-for-11 after Monday night's collapse, as the White Sox struck for four runs against Estevez (with some shoddy defense) to turn a 4-1 win into a 5-4 defeat. It was the fifth straight defeat for the Royals, as they fell to four games out of the final wildcard spot, which coincides with the Mariners, Guardians, and Rangers all winning multiple games in a row.

Salvador Perez got the Royals on the board early in the fourth, hitting his 20th homerun of the season to put the Royals up 1-0. The homerun was significant as he tied George Brett for the most 20-plus homerun seasons in team history; and also is now tied for third amongst primary catchers in 20-plus homerun seasons all-time.

The Royals increased their lead in the seventh to 3-0, but manager Matt Quatraro came away disappointed they couldn't get more in that inning. The first three Royals hitters reached base safely, with a Mike Yastrzemski single scoring Adam Frazier, and putting runners at first and third with no one out against lefty Tyler Alexander and the heart of the order coming up.

But Bobby Witt Jr flied out to left for the first out; and while Vinnie Pasquantino singled home another run, Maikel Garcia swung at the first pitch (a bad one) from Alexander grounding into a double play to bring the inning to a close in quick fashion.

"Yeah, you can't do that," he said regarding Garcia's at-bat in the seventh. "We have to be able to make better swing decisions than that. We did get two runs out of it, but the game may turn out differently had we cashed in a bit more on that particular opportunity."

They did add another run in the eighth on a pinch-hit homerun from Randal Grichuk, but as it turned out, it wasn't enough to hold off the White Sox in the end. Estevez retired Curtis Mead on one pitch, but it was downhill from there.

Josh Rojas blooped a single to right, and former Royal Michael A. Taylor hit a two-run bomb to cut the lead to just one. The problems were compounded by an error by Witt, booting a fairly easy groundball to put the speedy Jordan Sprinkle on base. He would get to third on Andrew Benintendi's double, and both of them were driven home on Chase Meidroth's single.

8/26 -- Royals' freefall continues in close defeat: Despite three solo homeruns, that was nearly all of the offense that they could put on display as the White Sox edged the Royals 4-3 to hand them their sixth straight loss.

Luke Maile and Mike Yastrzemski would go back-to-back with two outs in the third inning against Jonathan Cannon, only to see the White Sox battle back with two of their own in the bottom of the third. Seth Lugo allowed three earned runs over five innings, fanning six with one walk, but took 105 pitches to do so.

"We have to start jumping on these pitchers earlier in the inning," manager Matt Quatraro mused after the loss. "It seems lately we're taking until two outs to get anything going, which really limits your margin for error."

Chicago briefly took the lead in the fourth on an RBI single by Jacob Amaya, going in front by a 3-2 score at that point. It would remain that way until Vinnie Pasquantino tied the game with a solo homerun, his 22nd of the season. The hit also extended his hitting streak to sixteen games, the current longest streak in the majors.

"Vinnie has been on a mission lately," Quatraro said of his star first baseman, "But unfortunately, he's not getting a lot of help from the rest of the lineup."

Kansas City made things interesting in the ninth. Pasquantino flew out to center on the first pitch, but Maikel Garcia reached on an infield single, followed by a stolen base to get to scoring position with just one out. Things got even more interesting when Jac Caglianone, in a big spot, walked against White Sox closer Grant Taylor.

But again, as the Royals have been prone to do as their offense is back to sputtering, they quickly brought about the end of the inning by swinging at bad pitches. Salvador Perez entered the game in the eighth as a defensive replacement, and Quatraro made a good move by dropping him in Jonathan India's sixth spot in the order while pinch-runner Jorge Mateo took over at second base in the ninth spot.

Perez came up with a chance to at least tie the game with a single, but flew out on a flare to left-center on the first pitch from Taylor. Adam Frazier saw just two pitches before rolling over to second to end the game.

With the loss, the Royals have now dropped six in a row and have fallen five games off the pace for the final Wildcard spot, so it's going to take a miracle at this point for the Royals to have a chance. They'll have to leapfrog three teams now after coming within a half-game of the Rangers for the third position less than a week ago.

8/27 -- Ragans to begin rehab assignment: Having not thrown a pitch from a major league mound since June 5th, Cole Ragans is now the closest he's been to returning since then.

On Thursday, he'll make his first of two rehab starts in Double-A as he's expected to throw seventy pitches then; and then if all goes well during that start, he is scheduled to make a second rehab start in Triple-A before eventually returning to the Royals if both starts go off without any setbacks.

Despite a high ERA (5.18), he still has elite peripherals with a 2.44 FIP and 1.83 SIERA, thanks to several factors such as opponents' BABIP (.385), a high strikeout rate (40.4%), and a 47% groundball rate.

"We were thinking he was originally going to return around the end of July," said manager Matt Quatraro. "But we didn't want to take any chances after he felt some discomfort after a bullpen session back then, and it's been a tougher road back for him than we all imagined."

8/27 -- Offense comes to life in series-salvaging win: Over the years, the Royals have typically been bad against pitchers making their MLB debuts. For the first four and two-third innings, outside of a Randal Grichuk RBI double, it appeared that way again on Thursday night.

But the offense came alive in the fifth against lefty Noah Schultz, a consensus top twenty-five prospect that was just called up a few days ago to pitch out of the bullpen. With Sean Burke going on the injured list, however, he has been pressed into starting duty.

The Royals batted around in the fifth, with Jorge Mateo and Mike Yastrzemski going deep back-to-back with one out to put the Royals up 3-0. Bobby Witt Jr and Vinnie Pasquantino both singled, and each moved up a base after a wild pitch. Pasquantino's hit would extend his hitting streak to seventeen games, which is a new career high and the current longest streak in the league.

Maikel Garcia grounded into a fielder's choice, but Witt beat the throw home from second baseman Jacob Amaya for their third run of the inning. Schultz continued to fall apart in the inning, with Salvador Perez hitting a sac fly, issuing a balk with Grichuk at the plate that moved Garcia up to second, and then Grichuk put the exclamation point on the frame by launching a two-run homerun that finally knocked Schultz out.

"I was thrilled to finally see us put up a big number in an inning, and then we did it twice," said manager Matt Quatraro, referring to the following inning. "Bailey (Falter) pitched well, allowed us to really give our pen a rest heading into the next homestand. We really set ourselves back with losing six in a row, but there's still a lot of baseball that will decide things."

They tacked on four more in the sixth, all with two outs. Yastrzemski walked, followed by a Witt double to score him from first base. Pasquantino continued his rampage over the league, hitting his 23rd homerun to put the Royals up 10-0.

Kansas City closed out their scoring with a Grichuk RBI single later in the sixth, and then piled on with another insurance run in the ninth with LeMahieu scoring on a fielder's choice.

Lenyn Sosa led off the seventh against Falter with a homerun, but Falter was otherwise solid -- allowing just the lone run in seven innings of work, fanning eight with no walks on four hits. Luinder Avila pitched the final two innings, allowing one run on three hits, striking out four and walking one.