KANSAS CITY -- It has been a long and steep fall for Royals right-hander Jorge López, who raised expectations by nearly tossing a perfect game last September in Minnesota.

But ineffectiveness this season cost Lopez a spot in the rotation, and relieving hasn’t gone much better. Lopez gave up four straight hits to open the seventh inning, allowing four runs without recording an out while trying to protect a 3-2 lead. The Indians went on to win, 8-4, on Thursday to sweep the three-game series.

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The game’s start was delayed two hours, 30 minutes by rain.

Lopez, acquired from Milwaukee in the Mike Moustakas trade last July, gave up singles to Kevin Plawecki and Bobby Bradley. Tyler Naquin, after failing to get down a sacrifice bunt, doubled in a run to right-center. Then Francisco Lindor, with the infield in, ripped a two-run single to right, making the score 5-3. That was it for Lopez.

"It's really, really frustrating,” Lopez said. “I've got no excuse. I fell behind with the first guy. I threw a right-down-the-middle curveball. I tried to get after the next guy, tried to be down, looking for that ground ball I always try to get. Unfortunately, I didn't have it. They found holes."

The Royals have little choice but to stay patient with Lopez, who is out of options and saw his ERA balloon to 6.68.

“All of them [struggle at times],” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “It’s not just Lopez, it’s all of them. They’ll have good outings and then not a good outing. We set this up because we liked his curveball, but he wasn’t able to command it.”

Lopez is in his first full Major League season, and he's still learning.

“That’s not an excuse,” Yost said. “He just didn’t have his good stuff today, nor did he locate it.”

The Indians kept piling it on and they scored six times in the seventh, capped by Jose Ramirez’s second home run of the game. The fireworks eliminated a would-be win for starter Homer Bailey, who battled through five innings, allowing two runs on six hits and two walks. He struck out three.

Bailey also gave up a home run to Ramirez.

“It was a good-bad day, you know?” Bailey said. “I wasn’t able to go as deep as I wanted to. I left it middle to the one Ramirez hit out. The other run we gave up was a splitter that Lindor went down and got.

“I thought I battled pretty well. It’s just tough sometimes when you’re ready to walk out and go throw and you have to sit down twice [because of the rain delay]. It was a little humid. Tough to hold onto the ball a little bit. But you’re just gonna have days like that. You try to pitch your way through them.”

The Royals scored three runs in the third on an RBI single by Whit Merrifield, a safety squeeze bunt single by Adalberto Mondesi and a bases-loaded walk by Jorge Soler. Cam Gallagher added another run in the ninth with his first homer of the season.