KANSAS CITY -- The seven-game homestand the Royals kicked off on Monday night is as important as a homestand in early May can be with four games against the Guardians and three against the Tigers. Not to mention heading on the road next week to face the White Sox in Chicago.
Those are the clubs the Royals are chasing in the division, with the Guardians (18-18) and Tigers (18-18) tied atop the American League Central.
That means the Royals have a chance to rewrite the division over the next 10 days, and they couldn’t have gotten off to a better start with Monday’s 6-2 win over the Guardians at Kauffman Stadium.
The Royals have won four straight games and eight out of their last 10 after dropping to nine games under .500.
Kansas City is still 16-19, but just 1 1/2 games out of the division lead and a half-game behind the White Sox (16-18), who are in action in Anaheim, for third place.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
“It’s a good opportunity to win today,” manager Matt Quatraro said pregame. “And see what happens after that. We can’t play seven of them tonight.”
“This is one of those where you look at 10 games, like, ‘Man, we could really gain some ground,’” general manager J.J. Picollo added. “But it’s one at a time. It’s one at a time. We’ve got to start tonight with Cleveland. We just want to play good baseball. If we play good baseball, we’ve got the talent to compete and be in a position to win every night.”
There was plenty of good baseball to go around for the Royals on Monday. Starter Michael Wacha spun seven innings of two-run ball, needing just 79 pitches to cruise through the Guardians’ lineup. A two-run home run from David Fry gave Cleveland an early lead in the second, but the Royals pounced on Tanner Bibee for a four-run fourth inning.
Bobby Witt Jr.’s third home run of the season got it started, and the Royals just kept it going through the rest of the lineup. Even replay specialist Bill Duplissea got in on the fun, with the Royals successfully challenging an out call at home plate for the final run of the inning -- it didn’t take too long to determine that Carter Jensen’s toe beat Bo Naylor’s glove to home plate. That improved Duplissea to 11-for-12 on challenges this season.
The Royals added on in the sixth with Jac Caglianone’s home run -- on his Blazin’ Bat Bobblehead night, of course -- and in the seventh when Vinnie Pasquantino scored Witt from third on a single over the heads of a drawn-in infield.