This game defies witty headlines, Royals lose 9-3

Matt Quatraro made his worst choice of the season so far.

I said before the game that I was excited to see what Cole Ragans could do against the pitiful Angels’ lineup. That was my first mistake, I suppose. It seems like every time I’ve gotten excited for a pitching matchup this year, it’s gone poorly. I guess I’ll just keep telling myself I’m not excited about tomorrow’s matchup at all.

Tonight started off well enough, Bobby Witt Jr. had a one-out, infield single in the first inning before Salvador Perez doubled him home. Unfortunately, things went sideways in the second. Ragans gave up what should have been a leadoff single in the second innings but MJ Melendez played it into a triple. With a runner at third and no one out, the pressure was immediately on. Ragans got a groundball to Maikel Garcia for the first out but then he walked Niko Goodrum and the very hot Jo Adell hit his second home run in as many days to give the Angels a 3-1 lead that they would not relinquish.

After the Royals scored that run in the first inning they let Tyler Anderson, who has not been good this year despite his sparkling ERA, have his way with them. Anderson has had trouble with walks and home runs this year but gave up only one of the former and none of the latter in tonight’s game. He got 12 straight outs before Garrett Hampson worked a two-out walk in the top of the fifth.

Meanwhile, Ragans had given up another two runs in the third inning on three straight singles and a wild pitch.

Things started to seem like they might turn around in the sixth inning. Maikel Garcia led off with a single to left, advanced to second on a balk, and scored on a Bobby Witt looper into right. Vinnie Pasquantino just missed extra bases to right field. Bobby stole second but got greedy and got caught trying to steal third before Salvy flew out to end the inning.

Then, in the top of the seventh, Nelson Velázquez singled. Two outs later, Garrett Hampson singled and then Kyle Isbel also singled to drive home Nelly to cut the lead to two. Garcia flew out to end the inning but they had finally chased Tyler Anderson and good things can happen once you get into a bullpen, even a good one, which the Angels’ is not.

All season I’ve defended Matt Quatraro. I think he’s generally made smart or at least defensible calls when choosing when to pinch run or pinch hit. He didn’t let Will Smith keep blowing games because it was going to be tough to sit him. He didn’t let Hunter Renfroe’s contract keep him batting in the middle of the order or even in the lineup every night. But tonight, there does not appear to any defense for what he did next.

Cole Ragans, who very clearly did not have it tonight, but who had still given the team six innings, was asked to start the seventh. Maybe if the game was still out of reach I could understand trying to steal an inning with the starter. Certainly, I understood sending Michael Wacha back out for the seventh inning in Thursday night’s blowout win for that reason. Maybe if Ragans’ pitch count were still relatively low I could still at least understand the thought process. But this game was close, Ragans’ pitch count was high, and the Royals were building momentum inning by inning. What they needed now was to make damn sure the Angels didn’t re-extend the lead.

I don’t know if I’d say it was predictable, but it definitely seemed avoidable when Ragans gave up two singles to start the seventh. Even then, Q left him in. At least this made sense as he was facing the lefty Nolan Schanuel. Schanuel bunted the runners over and finally Ragans was allowed to leave the mound. In came not John Schreiber, Chris Stratton, or Angel Zerpa but Nick Anderson.

Anderson has had an OK ERA for the Royals this year and until Wednesday’s game against the Brewers, he had had nine straight scoreless appearances. What Nick Anderson had not done with any regularity was strike batters out. In those nine scoreless innings over nine scoreless appearances, he had struck out only six. And here there were runners at second and third with one out. A strikeout seemed to be what was called for.

Then, miracle of miracles, he induced a shallow flyball to center. The Angels’ third base coach chose not to challenge Kyle Isbel’s arm and now the Angels had runners at second and third with two out. Anderson pitched around Taylor Ward who has a slugging percentage over .900 with two outs and runners in scoring position and has generally been the Angels’ only good hitter. Next up was Kevin Pillar, who had been cut by the terrible White Sox for not being good enough. Anderson got him down in the count 0-2. Would the Royals escape Q’s horrible decision-making?

No, no they would not.

Anderson left a sinker out over the middle and Pillar lined it to right to score two runners. Then he stole second. Then he and Ward scored on Logan O’Hoppe’s double. Suddenly all the air had left the Royals’ sails.

Matt Sauer pitched a scoreless eighth inning but by then it was far, far too late.

A common refrain in moments like these is that the manager knows who is and is not available in the bullpen. Perhaps all the best relievers were unavailable tonight for some reason. But the Royals have a plethora of excellent relievers down in AAA.

If they don’t want to cut Tyler Duffey or Will Smith while they still might be useful, I can understand that. Nick Anderson has options. I can see being enticed by Matt Sauer’s stuff but he is clearly not ready and the Royals clearly need more flexibility in their bullpen now that the starters aren’t all pitching quality starts every night of the week. Walter Pennington, Will Klein, and Sam Long seem ready to take on roles in the big leagues, at least rotationally.

It’s hard to sweep a four-game series, and the Royals could still win tomorrow afternoon and this series as a whole will have to be considered a success. They stole a win Friday night so maybe it isn’t as big of a deal to give one away tonight. Maybe even if Q had gone to the bullpen faster they still would have given up runs. Maybe the offense still would have gone silent had the pitching escape the seventh without giving up any more. We don’t and can’t know the answers to any of those questions.

But the Royals are a good team and while no manager is perfect and no roster is 100% ready to play at it’s absolute peak every night, it sure doesn’t seem smart to just completely give up on a game that seemed like it might still be in reach. The players are doing their part. The management - both in-game and in the front office - need to do their absolute best to support them. That didn’t happen tonight and it was a huge part of the Royals loss.

The series will conclude tomorrow afternoon at 3:07 PM CT. AL ERA leader Seth Lugo will go for the Royals. Patrick Sandoval will go for the Angels. Here’s hoping all the pink accessories will inspire the Royals to deliver the gift of a series win to all the KC moms.