WEST SACRAMENTO – It was late in Kansas City, but Bobby Witt Jr. might have awakened everyone from out here on the West Coast.
A three-run, opposite-field home run in the top of the 10th inning powered the Royals to a 4-1 series-opening win over the A’s at Sutter Health Park on Tuesday, Kansas City’s fourth consecutive win. It was Witt’s second homer in as many games after entering Sunday with zero home runs this season.
It was also the Royals’ first road win since April 6 in Cleveland, snapping a streak of eight consecutive losses on the road. There was no better time to snap it than Tuesday as they kicked off a six-game road trip through Sacramento and Seattle.
“We’re going out there knowing what our goal is each and every day,” Witt said. “We’re going to show up to the field expecting to win.”
It wasn’t easy Tuesday, with the Royals needing to come back from a one-run deficit in the second inning. But Salvador Perez, playing through a left hamstring cramp that occurred while running out a long single in the fourth inning, did what he does best and crushed a pitch out to center field for a game-tying homer. It was Perez’s fifth home run of the season and puts him just nine away from matching George Brett’s franchise record of 317.
Perez didn’t have to worry about hustling around the bases on his Statcast-projected 425-foot homer, and he caught the rest of the game despite the cramp.
“I think tomorrow,” Perez said, “I’m going to be fine.”
Perez got the Royals back in the game, but they had a hard time putting anything else together until the 10th. Twice the Royals made the third out of an inning at third base. They left seven on base overall.
That changed in the 10th, when Nick Loftin started the inning on second base as the automatic runner and Kyle Isbel beat out a bunt for a base hit.
With one out, Witt pounced on a 1-0 cutter from A’s reliever Jacob Sterner, going to the opposite field for the big swing the Royals needed.
“Goal is always to be on time with the fastball and find grass out there,” Witt said. “Feel like my early at-bats were maybe a little too aggressive. Just being able to see it and be able to put a good swing on it, and then be able to try to help in any fashion I can.”
His homer dropped into the Royals’ bullpen – perhaps as a fitting thank you for the unit’s work Tuesday.
After Kris Bubic grinded through five-plus innings, the Royals’ back-end of the bullpen was nails, a showing that the group needed after struggling to begin the season.
John Schreiber got Bubic out of the sixth inning unscathed. Daniel Lynch IV worked around a two-out double in a scoreless seventh. Matt Strahm tiptoed around a bases-loaded situation in a scoreless eighth, walking Darell Hernaiz with a base open to face the left-handed batter Jeff McNeil.
“Game situation always plays into it,” Strahm said. “That’s something you got to look at, peeking up and seeing McNeil on deck. We faced each other a lot. I wouldn’t know our numbers against each other, but I just like my odds against the lefty.
“... I’m OK with the bases loaded.”
He was Tuesday, getting McNeil to fly out to left field.
Nick Mears – pitching in his hometown – shut down the top of the A’s order in the ninth inning to send the game to extras.
Lucas Erceg locked down his seventh save of the year, also working around a bases-loaded situation in the 10th.
“[The A’s] make you work,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “You can get ahead of them, but it’s hard to put them away. To limit them to one run is extremely impressive. … Those are tough innings.”
The Royals are clearly in a groove right now, evidenced by the type of baseball they’ve played over the last week when they snapped their eight-game losing streak with a win against Baltimore. During that streak, a one-run deficit was hard to overcome.
Now? There’s not a doubt, especially in the dugout.
“The fight this team has has never stopped,” Strahm said. “That’s what excites me about it. I said it early, I think at FanFest, about how hungry they are with how disappointing a year it was for them last year, how it ended. And when you’ve got a young group with that kind of hunger, it can be a dangerous recipe. I think we’re playing the ball that we’re capable of, and we’re capable of even better ball.”