Royals Report: Oakland Bombs KC For Humiliating 14-5 Defeat

The Royals suffered a humiliating four-game sweep at the hands of the last place Oakland A’s with Thursday’s 14-5 defeat at Kauffman Stadium. Oakland outscored the Royals 43-12 in the series.

96. 5. 7. Final. 14

The Kansas City Royals fell to 74-72 with Thursday’s 14-5 loss. KC now sits 6.0 games behind Baltimore and Toronto, who are tied for the AL’s two wild card spots.

This game got out of hand went starter Edinson Volquez gave up five runs in the third inning to give the A’s a 6-0 lead. The key blow came when 3B Ryon Healy blasted a three-run shot with two outs in the inning.

Volquez gave up another three runs in the fourth inning. Overall, Volquez lasted a mere 3.1 innings, allowing 7 hits, 4 walks, and 9 earned runs with 3 strikeouts. His ERA ballooned to a horrendous 5.40 and as he took the loss (10-11).

Oakland rookie starter Daniel Mengden held KC scoreless for 7.0 innings, allowing only 3 hits, 0 walks, and striking out 6. The Kansas City Royals didn’t score until hanging five meaningless runs on A’s reliever Dillon Overton in the ninth inning.

A Futile Rally

While too little, far too late, Kansas City’s ninth inning rally included rookie Hunter Dozier‘s first major league hit (a double) and Christian Colon‘s first career home runs (a three-run blast). That rally broke a string of 17 consecutive innings without a score by KC.

The fact is, the Royals have looked completely cooked the last two games. They seem like a team that has lost faith and are just playing out the string. I guess I can’t really blame them. Manager Ned Yost would just bring in Joakim Soria to blow the game if they had played hard.

Why fight for a lead that is certain to disappear?

A playoff spot would require a miraculous finish with only 16 games remaining in the season. However, Kansas City pretty much has to win all of it’s games. Or, they’ll have to catch some serious luck in the season’s final two weeks. Frankly, I’m not holding my breath.

The truly disgusting thing is that if the KC bullpen hadn’t blown five games with late-inning leads in the last two weeks, they would be one game behind a wild card position. Heck, if the Kansas City Royals had taken care of business against a terrible Oakland team, they would only be two games behind a wild card spot.

Next: Royals Need To Sign Greg Holland For 2017

Perhaps if their manager wasn’t giving away games, maybe they would have played with some energy and fire.

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