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ROYALS HEADLINES
Wildcard chances begin to slip further away

By artoodeetoo
09/15/2025

9/12 -- Bullpen implodes in loss to Phillies: Heading into the sixth inning, the Royals looked poised to cruise to a fairly stress-free victory up by a 4-0 count on the road at Philadelphia, but the Phillies rallied for two in the sixth on a Kyle Schwarber two-run homerun, which seemed to jumpstart a moribund offense.

They picked up two more in the seventh to pull to within one before exploding against the Royals' bullpen in the eighth, picking up a half-dozen runs on their way to doubling up the Royals by a 10-5 score.

Michael Lorenzen, a former Phillie hurler, had allowed just two earned runs through six innings before coming back out for the seventh. He allowed a single to Brandon Marsh, who then stole a base and came around to score on Harrison Bader's RBI double. Daniel Lynch IV came in to face the top of the Philly order, allowing a Bryson Stott RBI double before getting the next three outs consecutively.

Royals skipper Matt Quatraro made an interesting move in the eighth, going to Ryan Thompson for the eighth instead of Lucas Erceg. Despite not working for three days before then, Erceg had thrown twenty-seven pitches in yesterday's win over Cleveland, which was the reason that Quatraro went with the newcomer Thompson in this situation.

"We just haven't had a situation for Ryan to work in a while, and we had right-handers coming up in the inning, so we decided it was a good spot for him to go," he said. "It didn't work out for us in the end, and Ryan ended up coming out after feeling some discomfort in his right shoulder, so we turned to Lucas in a pinch, even though we were hoping to get him at least a day of rest to have him ready for the final two games of the series."

Erceg didn't get anyone out in his brief appearance, allowing two hits and a walk and ended up being charged with three earned runs. Bailey Falter came in and was able to get the final out, but had to work around a couple of hits to end the frame.

Offensively, the Royals hit a trio of homeruns, but otherwise could not get much of anything going outside of the first half of the game. Maikel Garcia hit his 14th homerun of the season in the sixth, with Mike Yastrzemski following him up in the seventh for his 16th homerun of the season (his 8th since joining the team).

9/13 -- Offense comes alive late in Royals victory: For the second straight night, the Royals lost a multi-run lead after the sixth inning, but this time the offense came back with a vengeance as the Royals tacked on five runs over their final two at-bats as the Royals sprinted past the Phillies by a 9-5 score.

With a first-inning two-run homerun, Salvador Perez became the 10th active player with 1,000 or more RBI, and joined George Brett and Hal McRae as the only Royals to top the 1,000-RBI mark for their career. Perez would also add a solo homerun in the eighth-inning, part of a back-to-back homerun inning as both he and Bobby Witt Jr homered against Orion Kerkering to lead off that frame.

Witt's homerun was also a milestone homerun, becoming only the second player in league history, joining Alex Rodriguez as the second player ever to have four seasons of at least twenty homeruns, at least thirty doubles, and 25 fWAR or better prior to their age-25 season completion. Perez is now just four homeruns away from 300, as he would become just the eighth catcher in league history to reach that mark.

However, Seth Lugo's strong start was spoiled yet again by a bullpen implosion as Daniel Lynch IV surrendered three earned runs in just two-thirds of an inning of work. John Schreiber got the final out of the seventh, and also worked a perfect eighth to pick up the win.

Lugo only struck out two, but didn't walk a batter and scattered eight hits over six innings, throwing 104 pitches. Maikel Garcia's ninth-inning three-run blast gave the Royals a nice cushion heading into the bottom of the inning, allowing Matt Quatraro to not have to expend any of their top options in the victory.

"Huge, just huge," he said of the homerun. "I mean, I would have settled for a single because you're up three, but that extra run to put us up four cemented in my mind that we could skip using the back end of the bullpen unless the situation would later dictate that we needed to, so that's a big deal for us heading into tomorrow's game."

It was Garcia's only hit of the game, but it showed that he's become quite the force in the middle of the order.

"The amount of extra work he's put in has been paying off for him, and us, in spades," Quatraro went on to say. "There's also still some room for growth and further development as well, so we're thrilled about what we've seen so far and what to expect down the road."

Now 8-4 in the month of September, the Royals are off to a good start, but still remain three games behind Texas for the final wildcard position; and now just one back of the Mariners, who are beginning to slip a little bit. After tomorrow afternoon's game, the Royals will be off before beginning the final homestand of the year with the aforementioned Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays coming to Kansas City.

9/14 -- Very little goes right in series finale: Bobby Witt Jr's solo homerun in the first inning gave the Royals an early lead in the game; but beginning in the fourth inning, the Phillies had a sustained and consistent onslaught as they pounded the Royals 16-4 to send the Royals packing back to Kansas City. It's the largest margin of defeat for the Royals this season.

The loss drops the Royals to four games back of the final wildcard spot with just a dozen games to go, with the Mariners two games ahead of them. They have key series coming up against both Seattle and Toronto, and will likely need to sweep both series and then win at least four of six from their final road trip against the Angels and Athletics to have a shot. It's do-able, but if the Phillies' series is any indication, the chances appear to be slim.

Drawing his second start since returning from the injured list, Cole Ragans breezed through the first three frames before running into a brick wall in the fourth. Four of the first five hitters in that inning reached base safely, with three runners coming home to score. With two out, Ragans hit Edmundo Sosa with a pitch to extend the inning, allowing another run to score on a bases-loaded walk to Trea Turner.

Ragans, already over eighty pitches through four innings, stayed on for the fifth. However, he allowed two of the first three hitters to reach before Brandon Marsh hit a three-run homerun to finally kick Ragans from the contest. He was charged with seven earned runs over 4 1/3 innings, although he only walked two with five strikeouts.

"Just didn't have it today," he said when asked how his stamina was later in his outing. "Didn't really have anything to do with feeling tired, or anything like that."

The bullpen didn't fare much better, with Taylor Clarke surrendering four earned runs over the next two innings of work. The normally reliable Steven Cruz was also knocked around as he was eventually charged with five earned runs over 1 1/3 innings, with Bailey Falter being the only reliever that went scoreless in his outing. He struck out the only hitter he faced in the eighth.

"Of course, this is one that you just have to flush and move on," said skipper Matt Quatraro, a bit dejected. "We'll head back to Kansas City today, have a day off, our next-to-last one, and then see if we can finish this sprint to the end of the season."