Williams, Guardians can't put away surging Royals as bats go cold again

KANSAS CITY -- The Guardians have run into the Royals at a time when Kansas City is red hot.

Through the opening two games of a four-game series at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals have had a fourth-inning formula for keeping Cleveland at arm’s length. That was the case again on Tuesday when Guardians starter Gavin Williams lost an eight-pitch battle to Michael Massey and the lead. Massey’s two-run homer in the fourth was the springboard for Cleveland’s 5-3 loss to a Kansas City team that has won nine of 11.

The Guardians needed a shutdown inning from Williams after Rhys Hoskins delivered a three-run homer in the top of the fourth to give Cleveland a 3-2 lead. But with one on and one out in the bottom of the inning, Williams just couldn’t quite put Massey away.

The Kansas City second baseman fouled off three pitches with a 1-2 count. Then Massey took a ball just off the plate by 0.1 inches, according to ABS challenge. On the next pitch, Massey launched a towering drive over the right-field wall for a 4-3 Royals lead.

“He saw a lot of pitches,” Williams said. “A lot of spin, a lot of heaters. I didn’t really know what he was sitting on. Left a curveball middle-in and he put a good swing on it.”

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt gave credit to Massey for keeping the at-bat alive long enough to finally get a pitch he could drive.

“It was a good at-bat with two very good baseball players,” Vogt said.

Royals projected starter Noah Cameron was scratched because of low back tightness and the club brought up right-hander Stephen Kolek, who had been working in Triple-A recently on a rehab assignment. Other than the big blow by Hoskins, the Guardians were unable to put runs on the scoreboard in Kolek’s 2026 debut. Cleveland (18-19) has dropped its past three games while totaling just six runs.

“It was similar to [Michael] Wacha [on Monday],” Vogt said. “With the sinker and cutter, it just seemed like we were missing the barrel.”

The Cleveland offense always goes best when José Ramírez is in high gear. But right now, Ramírez is hitting .212 after going 0-for-4 on Tuesday.

“For José, he’s in a little bit of a funk,” Vogt said. “It just looks like right now he’s a little in between. He’s a little late on fastballs and a little out in front on offspeed. But he’s one swing away from getting out of it.”

On a night when they could muster only four hits, the Guardians managed to stay close thanks to the fact that Williams helped a weary bullpen by going six innings. After a signature outing in his last start against Tampa Bay when he worked 7 2/3 innings and didn’t allow an earned run, Williams surrendered eight hits and five runs to the Royals.

“I always want to help [the bullpen] as much as possible,” Williams said. “They’ve helped me plenty when I’ve had short starts.”

After giving up the lead for good in the fourth inning of both games, the Guardians will try to right the ship the next two days before returning home. The mission now is to salvage a decent road trip that had started in such promising fashion with two victories over the A’s when Cleveland put up eight and 14 runs, respectively.

“It’s the ebbs and flows of the game,” Hoskins said. “We find ourselves in a lot of games. But we’ve run into some good pitching and we’ve hit some balls hard the last couple of days that were outs.”