NEW YORK – The momentum and energy from Vinnie Pasquantino’s game-tying home run in the eighth inning lasted less than 10 minutes before the Yankees delivered an even bigger swing to retake the lead and land one final blow on the Royals on Friday night in the Bronx.
One punch after another – that’s the way it’s going right now for the Royals.
Their 4-2 loss to the Yankees on Friday was their fifth consecutive, and they have yet to win a game on this road trip through Detroit and New York. Friday wasn’t a one-run loss like the previous four games, but a two-run loss sure isn’t much better.
Ten of the Royals’ past 11 games – and each of their past seven – have been decided by two runs or fewer, their longest streak of such games since Aug. 12-22, 2023, when they played 10 consecutive games decided by two runs or fewer.
This year, the Royals are 4-7 in those games. They are 7-13 overall on the season.
It’s a certified rut, one they badly need to climb out of – and soon. Pressure is mounting for a team with stated expectations of the playoffs. It might be only 20 games into a 162-game marathon, and it might be only mid-April. But no one wants to hear that during a bad week, and October should never be far from a contending team’s mind.
“Losses can beat you down,” Pasquantino said. “The way you’re performing can beat you down. You got to find a way to build yourself back up. This is a big-time confidence game. Things can change in one swing. We’ve talked about that quite a bit. One pitch, one swing, one defensive play. One stolen base. Anything can happen. We’re looking for that spark right now.
“We've just got to keep pushing forward. There’s nothing else we can do. We’re diligent in our work. We just got to make sure we’re doing the right things when we get out onto the field.”
But the left-handed slugger used the Yankee Stadium short porch to his advantage Friday with a Statcast-projected 339-foot home run to the right-field seats.
“We were right where we needed to be right then, in that moment,” Pasquantino said. “Happy to get it tied. Just didn’t work out tonight.”
The Royals have had a revolving door of bullpen roles recently as they try to get the unit out of its own rut. With a tie game in the eighth, manager Matt Quatraro turned to right-hander Alex Lange, even with two lefties due up in Cody Bellinger and Ben Rice and a third in Ryan McMahon if the Yankees got a baserunner.
Matt Strahm and Daniel Lynch IV, the two lefties the Royals have in the ‘pen, were unavailable.
“We were a little bit thinner for the left-handed matchups,” Quatraro said. “We like Lange with the changeup and the ability to get the ball below the bat.”
But with two outs and a runner on first, McMahon delivered that big swing with a two-out, two-run, go-ahead home run.
“Made a good pitch. Better swing. See you tomorrow,” Lange said of the changeup down that McMahon hit a Statcast-projected 372 feet to left field. “He put a good swing on a pretty good pitch, I thought, and that happens. Life of a reliever.”
Life of the Royals right now. They’ve continued to get good starts from their rotation, including Michael Wacha’s six innings of two-run ball Friday night. Wacha’s ERA “jumped” from 0.43 to 1.00 on Friday because of Rice’s two-run homer, the very first hit Wacha has allowed off his changeup all year.
But Kansas City’s bullpen is shaky, and the offensive woes have continued. The Royals have scored two runs or fewer in 12 of 20 games this season.
They went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position Friday. When they forced Yankees starter Cam Schlittler from the game in the seventh, they were shut down in order by lefty Brent Headrick to strand runners on second and third.
“We’re a good team,” Pasquantino said. “We got to believe it. We got to show up ready to go. I don’t think we’ve shown up not ready to go, by any stretch. Things haven’t clicked for us yet, and we just got to keep pushing forward, keep working hard and go do it.”