CLEVELAND -- The Royals entered Monday night’s series opener against the Guardians needing a well-pitched and deep start from their starter after leaning heavily on their bullpen during their weekend stretch of three games in two days.
Like he has so many times as a Royal, Michael Wacha delivered.
Pushed back from his scheduled weekend start against the Brewers because of an illness, Wacha returned against the Guardians and tossed seven innings of one-run ball in the Royals’ 4-2 win at Progressive Field.
Wacha needed 102 pitches, worked around three walks and struck out just three, but he held the Guardians to just three hits. One of those was a Steven Kwan home run that fell just fair and a Statcast-projected 381 feet in right field.
Wacha often mentions how fun it is to play in front of the defense that the Royals deploy behind him, and Monday night showed exactly why. The Royals made a number of good defensive plays, including one rare double play that literally went around the horn.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Rhys Hoskins hit a low liner to third baseman Maikel Garcia’s left, hitting the top of his glove. Luckily, Bobby Witt Jr. was right there to finish what Garcia started, grabbing the ball and firing to second baseman Jonathan India, who turned it over to first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino.
Score that as a 5-6-4-3 double play. Just how they drew it up.
The Royals did just enough offensively to support Wacha’s efforts on a chilly night that only got colder as the game played out. The lineup pushed Tanner Bibee’s pitch count up to 87 into the fifth and hit the ball hard against him, including Witt’s three at-bats against him: A 115.6 mph single, a 104.4 mph lineout and a 107.8 mph infield single to Guardians first baseman Kyle Manzardo. Witt registered a 31.5 feet/second sprint speed on that, exactly 4 feet/second faster than Pasquantino’s bunt base hit in the first inning. Both counted as hits, though, and the Royals will take them.
After India tied the game at 1 with an RBI single in the fourth inning, Carter Jensen hit the go-ahead home run in the sixth. India added insurance runs in the eighth with his two-run homer, which proved to be crucial when Guardians No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio hit a solo homer off reliever Matt Strahm in the bottom of the frame.