KANSAS CITY -- The Royals are bruised, banged up and without several of their everyday players at the moment. They haven’t let that stop them these past two nights against the Cardinals.
A day after erupting for 14 runs in the series opener, the Royals rallied from behind Friday night for a 6-5 win over the Cardinals at Kauffman Stadium, their third victory in a row and first series win since June 4-7 in Minnesota.
The teams now head into a rare Saturday off-day, their series interrupted by a World Cup match being held at Kansas City Stadium across the parking lot from The K on Saturday night. When they return on Sunday, the Royals will look for a sweep.
For the first three innings Friday, it looked like the Royals’ offense might not have had any carryover effect from the previous night. A four-run fourth inning changed that, with the Royals knocking Cardinals starter Michael McGreevy around during a 32-pitch inning. Lane Thomas led off with a double and scored on Jac Caglianone’s single. Caglianone advanced to second on Salvador Perez’s groundout and scored on Michael Massey’s single, with the throw from center fielder Nathan Church taking an odd bounce off the cleat cleaner on the mound. After John Rave walked, Isaac Collins scorched the first of his two doubles to bring home two runs.
Caglianone helped add on in the fifth with his second home run in as many days and his 10th blast of the season, a Statcast-projected 404 foot shot to the opposite field. Tyler Tolbert, who was making his first career start at shortstop with Bobby Witt Jr. sidelined with a Grade 1 MCL sprain, added a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning.
Tolbert also teamed up with second baseman Michael Massey for an electric play in the eighth inning. Iván Herrera grounded a ball directly up the middle, and Massey wasn’t able to make a play on it himself -- but he was able to flip it to Tolbert, who spun around and fired to first for the third out of the frame.
All of that was enough to hand the win to starter Seth Lugo, who was making his first start in over a week since being hit on the head by a line drive on June 10. The headaches have subsided and the welt that had formed is nearly gone by now, and Lugo looked like himself on Friday with six innings and two runs (one earned) allowed. He might linger on the three walks, but to give the Royals a quality start was massive.