Royals get plenty of lessons with nail-biting set vs. Mariners

KANSAS CITY – During a four-game series this week at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals and Mariners saw all four games decided by two runs or fewer, clutch hits that fueled offensive comebacks and several wacky plays.

But the Royals, despite being competitive against a team eyeing a postseason spot late in the season, lost three of the four games. And Thursday’s 6-4 loss was another reminder that there is work to be done to take another step forward.

“Overall, we’ve been playing a lot better baseball lately,” infielder Matt Duffy said. “There were some things we could have done better this series, cleanliness-wise, that maybe could have put us in better positions.”

The results aren’t as important right now with Kansas City so far out of contention. But the Royals do have to learn how to win the games they played this week.

“This is kind of what we talked about from the get-go,” manager Matt Quatraro said after Wednesday’s loss. “There are razor-thin margins every night. That’s incumbent on us to figure out a way to win these games.”

Three of those moments stood out on Thursday:

Hernández’s high-leverage moment
With one out in the top of the eighth inning and runners on first and second, Carlos Hernández entered to face the top of Seattle’s lineup and its superstar, Julio Rodríguez.

Hernández has taken over the Royals’ high-leverage role in the bullpen after the Trade Deadline, but mistakes have cost him recently. On Thursday, he threw a first-pitch 97 mph fastball inside but belt-high to Rodríguez, who crushed it 438 feet for a three-run, go-ahead homer.

“The height of [the pitch] was probably more detrimental than the [location],” Quatraro said. “We want guys to raid the zone, we want them to get in the zone on the first pitch. Sometimes, you’re going to get beat. That’s a great hitter who put a good swing on a good fastball. We do need to locate it.”

The Royals are piecing together an inexperienced bullpen and trying to find relievers who can be counted on in big situations. Hernández has generally been that this season but is struggling this month, allowing eight earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. But all series, the bullpen has struggled: The Mariners scored 28 runs in the series, and half (14) were scored in the eighth inning or later.

Baserunning blunders
The Royals’ offense averaged 6.7 runs per game on this six-game homestand with a .528 slugging percentage and .895 OPS. They put together another comeback Thursday, starting with Nelson Velázquez's game-tying homer in the fourth inning -- his fourth home run in six games as a Royal.

Kansas City plated three in the sixth on Michael Massey’s game-tying single, MJ Melendez’s go-ahead RBI double and Freddy Fermin’s sacrifice fly, but the inning was cut short on Melendez’s baserunning mistake.

After catching Fermin’s sac fly, Rodríguez threw the ball to shortstop Jose Caballero, who fired it over to third base, where Melendez was trying to advance. Part of the Royals’ identity is aggressive baserunning, but Melendez acknowledged he shouldn’t have tried to take the extra base.

“Honestly, just a bad read on my part,” Melendez said. “Really no excuse. I need to let [Rodríguez] make that decision on where he wants to throw and go from there. Something that kind of took the momentum out of our hands a little bit. Wish I could redo that, but it happens.”

One wacky play after another
Melendez, who was 2-for-4 at the plate, had a busy day in left field, making an inning-ending and run-saving catch at the wall in the second inning. He then made his team-leading eighth outfield assist in the sixth when he threw out Dominic Canzone trying to score from first.

The weirdest play of the day came in the seventh, when Seattle’s Dylan Moore looped a ball to left field that Melendez got a glove on but dropped. Moore ran to the bag but thought Melendez caught it, so he took a few steps back toward the dugout.

First-base umpire John Libka called Moore out, invoking rule 5.09(b)(2): “Any runner is out when, after touching first base, he leaves the base path, obviously abandoning his effort to touch the next base.”

“Right when [Moore] left the bag, the umpire called him out, before I got the ball,” Duffy said.

Melendez fired a dart to Duffy, but the tag didn’t matter because of the abandonment rule.

“I could see that he had come off the bag, so I was like, ‘All right, let me throw it just in case because I’m not really sure of the rules on that,’” Melendez said.