Royals Battle Keuchel; Lose 4-2

The Royals entered Game 3 of the ALDS knowing that they were in for a battle with Dallas Keuchel on the mound. The hope was that maybe Keuchel would be due for his first home loss of the year. Unfortunately, things didn’t end up happening that way.

Edinson Volquez started for the Royals and was in complete control at first. In fact, the Royals were winning 1-0 on a moonshot by Lorenzo Cain in the top of the fourth and had worked Keuchel’s pitch count up over 7o through four innings. They’d also missed out on a couple of opportunities in those innings allowing the Houston pitcher to work out of multiple situations with RISP.

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The fifth inning is where Volquez ran into his own set of troubles. Luis Valbuena worked a one-out walk before Chris Carter ripped a double down the left field line to put runners at second and third. Jason Castro then came to the plate and hit a weak grounder up the middle that scored both runners and made the score 2-1 in favor of the Astros.

Volquez ran into more trouble in the sixth when George Springer led off the inning with a double. Carlos Correa grounded out to the right side and pushed Springer to third. Colby Rasmus was intentionally walked and Evan Gattis struck out before Carlos Gomez hit a single to score Springer and push the score to 3-1. Danny Duffy came in and threw one pitch to get Marwin Gonzalez to fly out to end the inning.

Duffy came back out the next inning and his first pitch was absolutely mashed by to left-center by Chris Carter to give the Astros a 4-1 lead.

The Royals tried to mount a comeback against Houston’s bullpen in the eighth and ninth inning. Alex Gordon led off the ninth with a solo home run but that was all the Royals could muster as they fell to the Astros 4-2.

Yordano Ventura starts for the Royals in Game 4 tomorrow at noon as they try to even up the series and send it back to Kansas City for the clincher.

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