CLEVELAND -- Sometimes baseball can be a simple game.
While it’s a sport that has a season which features thousands of games and outcomes, there are still plenty of occasions where the difference between a team winning and losing can be contributions from its best players.
That scenario played out for the Royals on Friday night in their 3-0 win over the Guardians at Progressive Field.
While Kansas City’s offense wasn’t able to do much for most of the evening, the game’s first run was generated on a Bobby Witt Jr. masterclass in the fifth inning, while Michael Wachamade it stand up with eight scoreless innings and a season-high 10 strikeouts as the Royals won for the 10th time in 11 games.
Budding Guardians killer Carter Jensen added on with a two-run home run in the ninth inning.
After leading off the fifth inning with a 109.2 mph double to left field that was inches away from being a home run, Witt advanced to third on a Jac Caglianone fly ball to center field before coming around to score on a Salvador Perez groundout to shortstop.
Even though Guardians shortstop Brayan Rocchio would have had a hard time getting the speedy Witt at home, his quickness on the basepaths made Rocchio rush through the transfer and ruin any chance he had to try to get Witt at the plate.
Witt got on base with hard contact, then made things happen with his legs. Call it the Witt way.
That offense was just enough to back up Wacha, who followed up his solid seven-inning start his previous time out against the Tigers on Saturday with one even better.
Wacha scattered four hits and allowed just one Guardians batter to advance past second base.
That performance was just another day of division dominance for Wacha, who now has a 1.54 ERA in 70 innings against the American League Central this season. He also lowered his career ERA against Cleveland to 2.07 in 66 1/3 innings.