|
KC Recap
Game 1 – 5–1 W
You opened the set perfectly. Davis Martin danced around traffic for 4 innings and the pen (Shuster, Wilson, Murfee) completely shut the door.
Offensively it was the explosion in the 7th that decided it: Sosa’s walk, Teel’s pinch-run/single, Lipcius’ RBI knock and then Luis Robert Jr. ripping a triple into the gap before Vaughn finished it off. Clean defense, no walks from the bullpen, and you steal one from Cole Ragans.
Game 2 – 5–4 L
This one’s the heartbreaker. Hagen Smith’s first big-league start was shaky but survivable; the real damage came in the 5th when Clevinger couldn’t shut the door: Renfroe walk + HBP, then Pasquantino’s two-run double and Witt Jr’s two-run bomb turned a 1–1 game into 5–1 KC.
You clawed back – Benintendi and Quero with back-to-back doubles, another late RBI from Rojas, and Robert Jr. stayed locked in – but the 9th ended with the tying run on when Vaughn never got to swing because of the pickoff at first. One that very much got away.
Game 3 – 5–2 L
Michael Lorenzen out-dueled Mike Vasil. You actually scored first again: Meidroth worked a walk, Vaughn singled and Rojas shot an RBI single for a 1–0 lead.
Then Vasil lost the zone and KC made you pay. Blanco’s three-run shot in the 2nd and another Witt Jr. homer in the 3rd put you in a deep hole. From there Lorenzen just pounded the zone – your only real punchback was Teel’s double and Robert Jr.’s RBI single. Bryse Wilson did his job in long relief, but the offense never really threatened again.
Game 4 – 8–5 L
This was the wild one. Meidroth nuked a leadoff homer off Wacha, and by the middle of the 3rd you’d chased him and led 5–0 behind a barrage from Robert Jr. (triple + single), Rojas and Teel. It looked like a cruise day.
Instead, Marquez imploded in the bottom of the 3rd: Velazquez homer, a parade of hits, a passed ball and suddenly it’s 5–4. KC tied it in the 5th after an error behind Shuster, and then the game blew open in the 8th. Eisert walked the tightrope and fell off – Garcia walk, Loftin’s RBI single, Blanco and Mark Canha adding run-scoring knocks – a three-run inning that turned a tight 5–5 game into an 8–5 loss.
Big Picture
Series result: 1–3, dropping you to 14–24 while KC climbs to 20–19.
Offense: You actually held your own – 16 runs in four games, lots of baserunners, and you led first in three of the four.
Luis Robert Jr. is clearly heating up: loud contact all series with multiple extra-base hits and run-producing swings in three different games.
Kyle Teel gave you real juice too – extra-base power, good at-bats, plus work on the bases.
Pitching/defense: That’s where the series slipped. Outside of Martin in Game 1, every starter either left early or got tagged, and the biggest moments (Clevinger’s 5th in Game 2, Marquez/Eisert innings in Game 4) flipped wins into losses. A few key errors and passed balls poured gas on the fire.
|