Royals Report: KC Drops Broom In Sloppy Loss To Twins

The Royals failed to close out the sweep against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday afternoon, suffering a disappointing 7-5 loss at Target Field.

The KC Royals lost despite hanging a five run rally on Twins starter Tyler Duffey in the third inning that allowed them to take a 5-3 lead. Unfortunately, Kansas City Royals starter Dillon Gee was even worse, allowing six runs in only four innings pitched (five earned). Gee’s day included two solo shots to open the game and a brutal two-run bomb to Miguel Sano that lost the lead in the fifth inning.

The Royals didn’t help themselves by allowing an unearned run in the second when Paulo Orlando dropped Eduadro Nunez’s easy pop fly in left followed by Gee making a wild pickoff attempt which allowed the runner to go to third. Nunez scored on Brian Dozier‘s single to put the Twins up 3-0 in the second inning.

As disappointing as the loss was, the Kansas City Royals have still won four straight series after losing five in a row. Even dropping the third game to the Twins shouldn’t put a damper on how the KC Royals have turned things around in the last 10 days.

Yes, sweep would have been nice. But the KC Royals are over .500 at 23-21 and trail the White Sox by only two games in the AL Central.

On to my five observations about Wednesday’s game:

Next: Jose Martinez

5) Royals Trade AAA outfielder/first baseman Jose Martinez

The KC Royals announced they had traded outfielder/first baseman Jose Martinez to the St. Louis Cardinals for cash.

The Royals had designated Jose Martinez for assignment in order to move utility man Whit Merrifield to the 40-man roster before calling him up last week. According to major-league rules, the Kansas City Royals would have to expose Martinez to waivers before they could assign him to a minor league team. 

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Instead, the KC Royals dealt him to the Cardinals. The 28-year-old Martinez, who was playing in the independent Frontier league as recently as 2014, made a splash in 2015 by winning the Pacific Coast League batting title with the highest batting average in modern history by hitting .384 in Omaha last season. Martinez earned a shot to earn a job this spring, but the Royals picked Reymond Fuentes to open the season with Jarrod Dyson on the disabled list to being the year.

Martinez then suffered a slow start in AAA Omaha, while fellow outfielders Brett Eibner and Jorge Bonifacio mashed the ball.

At this point, Martinez was caught in a numbers game.

Instead, Martinez goes to a St. Louis Cardinals organization that needs outfield depth. He probably has a better shot at getting into the bigs this season in St. Louis than he did in Kansas City.

Next: Jonny Gomes

3) Dillon Gee Just Didn’t Have It Today

The first two Minnesota Twins hitters mashed solo home runs against Dillon Gee, and he didn’t improve much from there. Gee gave up six runs (five earned) on Wednesday, including three home runs.

The third dinger came from Miguel Sano in the fifth inning with the KC Royals clinging to a 5-4 lead, with a runner on base to give the Twins a 6-5 lead. The blow was particularly damaging when you consider the Kansas City Royals had seized a 5-3 advantage after a five run fourth inning that appeared to put them in control of the game.

Rising Apple

Seriously, Gee was so bad it looked like he didn’t entirely wake up for the afternoon game and though he was throwing batting practice. He served up enough meatballs to Minnesota hitters that the even the slumping Twins couldn’t miss.

Sigh.

For the second time in a row, the KC Royals failed to close the deal after winning the first two games of a series. Let’s hope the Royals can pull off that elusive sweep when they return to Kansas City to face the White Sox in a four game series starting Thursday.

Listen, Gee has been pretty much a league average starter over his career. You can’t really expect him to become anything more than that just by virtue of putting on a Kansas City Royals uniform. He’s made two good starts for the Royals in place of Chris Young, and one bad one as well as being a good long reliever.

He’s doing his job.

Next: Salvador Perez

2) Salvador Perez Is So Hot Right Now Kate Upton Is Jealous

I tweeted this line during the game and liked it so much that I had to include it in this column. Seriously, KC Royals fans, Perez is on fire.

He went 5-5 on Monday, followed that game up with a 2-4 day with a home run on Tuesday, and finished the series with a 2-3 performance on Wednesday that even included a walk. The surge give Slavy nine hits in his last 12 at bats.

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Ridiculous.

The now 26-year-old Perez is slashing a quite respectable .283/.315/.509 with 7 home runs and 25 RBIs. He’s turning into a run producer in his sixth season in MLB.

Salvador Perez has always had elite contact ability and tremendous raw power. His problem has been strike zone recognition. He swings at too many bad pitches to force opponents to throw him strikes. If he can learn better plate discipline as he matures, he’ll put up some monster seasons that could put him in the Hall-Of-Fame.

I’m not kidding, folks. He’s got that kind of talent. Perez just needs to learn to lay off bad pitches, which could very well happen as he moves into his peak seasons. Many times we fans don’t appreciate how much craft a player has to develop to thrive in major-league baseball. Catchers, in particular, have a lot to learn when you add in calling games, managing pitchers, framing pitchers, and learning how to work umpires. Here’s to hoping that Salavor Perez is putting it all together.

Next: Royals Offense No Longer The Walking Dead

1) The Royals Offense Has Risen From The Dead

Forget about the loss to the Twins. The more important thing is that Kansas City Royals slammed more than 10 hits in every game. The KC Royals smacked 17 on Monday, added 13 on Tuesday, and smacked 11 more on Wednesday. Forty-one hits in three games is encouraging, no matter how bad the Twins might be.

Despite the loss, the Royals hung a five spot on the Twins in the third inning. That’s going to win most games:

Whit Merrifield is swinging a hot bat after getting called up from AAA Omaha last week. Merrifield is slashing .348/.348/.478 while starting games at third, second, center field, and left field. While no one can really expect him to keep hitting .348, we can see why the front office wanted to bring him up.

Salvador Perez extended his hti streak to 11-games, boosting his triple slash from a miserable .226/.262/.443 to a sizzling .283/.315/.509.

Paulo Orlando is riding a nine-game hitting streak, despite cooling off on Wednesday by going a mere 1-4 with 1 RBI and 1 run scored.

Even Rally Killer Omar Infante is getting into the act with hits in last four games. He’s still hitting a mere .248/.281/.336, but he’s not looking hopeless at the plate in recent days. Heck, he’s even added some nice situational hitting by making useful outs that helped him notch 3 RBI’s on Monday.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

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Let’s hope the bats can keep it going against the White Sox. Maybe they’ll pull off a rare FOUR GAME sweep.