SEATTLE -- The Royals have lived on the margins all season long. Wednesday night in Seattle was no exception, in a 3-2 loss to the Mariners to drop Kansas City to a season-worst seven games under .500.
With Seattle sending up the bottom of its lineup in the top of the seventh inning, manager Matt Quatraro stuck with southpaw Angel Zerpa, who had gotten the Royals out of the sixth, with two lefties due up after leadoff hitter Ben Williamson, who doubled. Two pitches later, Zerpa made a reaction play to snag a comebacker off the bat of Cole Young, turned around, and had Williamson dead to rights off second base -- but he took two steps off the mound before firing, allowing the Seattle third baseman to dive back to the bag and avoid Bobby Witt Jr.’s tag.
“He just hesitated a little bit, and then wanted to be careful throwing it,” Quatraro said. “He threw a little bit of a changeup there. One way or the other, any out there changes the whole situation of the game. If he goes to first, there’s one out regardless. That’s a reaction play. It’s great that he fielded it, but hopefully he just fires it right away and we get the out.”
“That’s just kind of one of those plays where maybe you work on it in Spring Training and it never happens, and when it happens, it just kind of shocks you,” Witt added.
After a sacrifice bunt, Quatraro turned to Steven Cruz, who allowed an RBI single on his first pitch and a sacrifice fly on his fifth, putting Seattle ahead by two runs.
The next frame, the Royals were in just about the same spot. Witt led off with his second hit of the day, and Vinnie Pasquantino followed with a single of his own. But after Salvador Perez -- who drove in Kansas City’s first run of the day in the first inning -- laced a one-out RBI single into center field, Jac Caglianone struck out swinging and Drew Waters bounced out to strand the tying run at third.
Seattle got two runs in its late-inning chance; Kansas City got one. In the end, that was the ballgame.
“These guys have an elite bullpen,” Quatraro said. “They have elite pitching. We know it’s going to be tough. It’s a one-run game, we just have to figure out a way to score that one run.”
It was the 41st time the Royals have been held to two runs or fewer, a mark that leads the league. Kansas City’s eight wins in such contests -- tied for third best in baseball -- speaks to the pitching staff, particularly the bullpen’s ability to walk the tightrope late in low-scoring games. But there have been plenty of tightropes to walk.
Since the beginning of June -- a spell in which the Royals have gone 9-19 -- the magic number has been six. In the eight games they’ve reached six runs, they’re 8-0. In the 20 games they haven’t, they’re 1-19.
“Just got to keep battling,” Witt said.
Rookie Noah Cameron kept the Mariners off-balance his whole outing, allowing just three balls with exit velocities over 95 mph -- and none over 100 mph. He finished with five strikeouts, one walk and four hits allowed.
“Everything was really good,” Cameron said. “I think I kind of got away with a couple pitches. Not by best two-strike pitches, but they swung through them, and I got a little bit lucky there.”
After cruising through four innings, the rookie ran into a bit of a jam in the fifth thanks to a pair of infield singles and a walk, and with the bases loaded and two outs, Quatraro turned the game over to his bullpen to cover 13 outs.
John Schreiber got the Royals out of the jam, getting Julio Rodríguez to fly out on one pitch, to seal Cameron’s scoreless outing of 4 2/3 innings.
After working into the seventh in each of his first four starts, Cameron’s gone five straight now without getting through the sixth.
“[I was] nibbling a little bit, not necessarily getting swings when I’m wanting to get swings out of the zone,” Cameron said. “Getting in deep counts and having to battle back. Lot of 3-2s, lot of 2-2s, stuff like that got the pitch count up.”