Lorenzo Cain Walks Off In Extras as Royals Down Seattle 4-3

It wasn’t quite a lean back, but it’ll do.

Lorenzo Cain delivered a one-out walk off single in the 10th inning to beat the Mariners 4-3, dropping the Royals magic number to two in the process.

Kansas City started the scoring in the bottom of the 4th, after Kendrys Morales singled, Salvador Perez doubled, before Alex Rios drove Morales in on a sacrifice fly to left field.

Royals starter Yordano Ventura cruised through the first four innings, allowing just two base runners over those four frames, but got into trouble in the 5th.

After striking out Seth Smith to start the innings, Mark Trumbo and Brad Miller both singled before being driven in on a two-out Ketel Marte triple, making it 2-1 Mariners.

Following a Kyle Seager walk, Nelson Cruz dropped a looping single into left field to drive in Marte, and make it a 3-1 game.

Ventura finished his night after six innings of work, giving up three runs, while striking out four Mariners.

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The Royals sparked in the 7th, after Cain doubled and was singled in by Eric Hosmer.

However, the momentum was killed when Hosmer was questionably picked off at first by Joe Beimel.

Hosmer and the Royals protested that Beimel balked, and they had a pretty good case, with replay showing that Beimel may have broken the 45 degree plane.

The pick off killed any momentum the Royals had, officially ending the inning with a Morales strike out.

Royals fans were given a little bit of a scare in the 8th inning, when Drew Butera entered the game for Perez, with the Royals down a run.

The Royals announced that he was removed from the game as a precaution, leaving with a knee bruise.

The Royals threatened in the bottom half of that inning, lead off by a Mike Moustakas hit-by-pitch.

Jarrod Dyson ran for Moustakas, before being bunted over to second by Butera.

Alcides Escobar‘s second four-pitch walk of the night (!!) brought Alex Gordon to the plate, who struck out swinging to end the inning, after finding himself down in the count 0-2 on two pitches that appeared to be balls.

The Royals threatened in the ninth inning, as Cain and Hosmer hit back-to-back singles, and were followed by a Morales walk.

With Moustakas out of the game, Dyson came up with the tying and winning runs in scoring position with one out, who delivered a sac fly to right field to tie the game at 3-3.

A Christian Colon walk brought Cheslor Cuthbert to the plate with the winning run on third with two outs, who flew out to right to end the inning and send the game to extras.

The Royals threatened again the next inning, starting with a one-out, 0-22 skid ending single by Alex Gordon, followed by a Zobrist hit-by-pitch.

After Paulo Orlando was brought into run for Gordon, Cain took a 1-0 pitch from Tony Zych into right field for a walk off single, dropping the Royals magic number to two.

With a win and a Twins loss tomorrow, the Royals will clinch their first division title since 1985 and their first AL Central title in franchise history.

Next: Seattle Mariners vs. Kansas City Royals, 7:10 PM CT, Kauffman Stadium; LHP James Paxton (3-4, 3.70 ERA) vs. RHP Johnny Cueto (9-12, 3.43 ERA)

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