Melendez's Grand Slam Launches Royals to Series-Tying Win over Dodgers
Saturday's game between the Royals and the Los Angeles Dodgers had the makings of a pitcher's duel on paper. Kansas City starting pitcher Seth Lugo upheld his end, but triceps tightness ended Yoshinobu Yamamoto's night early, and the Royal bats took advantage to even the series with a 7-2 win.
Yamamoto, one of the Dodgers' two prized acquisitions in free agency this past offseason, went only two innings. He was effective, allowing just one hit and a pair of baserunners, but was also not his best self. Reliever Michael Grove began warming in the second inning and took the mound beginning in the top of the third following the premature exit of the home team's $325 million starter.
Kansas City (41-31) plated the game's first run in the fourth inning with an RBI groundout by second baseman Nick Loftin. First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, who reached base three times at Dodger Stadium on Saturday, scored the run. In the home half of the inning, the Dodgers bats shook Lugo for the first time, loading the bases with one out and getting two runs out of the deal courtesy of a single by Loftin's second base counterpart, Gavin Lux.
Lugo, who got the victory to move his record to 10-2, left two runners on with a strikeout of Dodger catcher Austin Barnes. He's tied with Philadelphia's Ranger Suarez for the major league lead in wins. Lugo's offense set him up in the top of the sixth inning, when shortstop MJ Melendez hit a grand slam to turn a 2-1 Dodgers lead into a 5-2 Royals advantage. Lugo went six full innings of two-run ball, and his earned run average sits at 2.40.
In Yamamoto's absence, Los Angeles (43-29) manager Dave Roberts sent out a number of arms to make up for the blow of losing the starter early in an important game of a weekend series. Among them were a former Royals starter and a 2018 All-Star. It was the All-Star, Blake Treinen, whom Kansas City got to during that sixth inning. Prior to Melendez's slam, his eighth big fly of the season, Treinen issued three consecutive one-out walks to load the bases. He wound up with the loss, and Melendez had worked his count way up to the tune of a 12-pitch at-bat before the game-winning slam.
The Royals added two more runs in the top of the seventh, first on an RBI single by star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and then on a sacrifice fly off the bat of designated hitter Nelson Velazquez. Witt Jr. entered his seventh-inning plate appearance 0-3 and attacked the first pitch to score center fielder Garrett Hampson. One thing that proved important is that in three of the first four innings in the game, the Dodgers got the lead runner aboard. After the fourth inning, it didn't happen one time, and only one of those runners ended up in the scoring column. Los Angeles also stranded seven men on base, two more than the visitors.
After giving up a 3-0 advantage and losing 4-3 in Friday's game, the Royals put things together nicely to even things up going into the weekend finale on Father's Day. First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 CT, with the winner set to lock up the series. After that, Kansas City has six more road games in a row before its return to Kauffman Stadium. It will be Brady Singer vs. Tyler Glasnow, another big-money Dodgers get from the offseason, on the hill Sunday.
