#RoyalRecap: KC Royals with no answers in opener against the Yankees

Continuing a recent trend, Jason Hammel wasn’t particularly good for the KC Royals Tuesday night. The Yankees made sure he paid for every mistake too.

If Tuesday night was any indication, the Yankees are back and the American League is in trouble.

I don’t watch the Yankees any more than is totally necessary, because I love myself, so I thought they were getting it done with smoke and mirrors.

Nope.

These boys can rake. And it seems Jason Hammel is no longer built for opponents who can rake.

The Bronx Bombers strolled into the K Tuesday night to open a series against the KC Royals and left with a 7-1 victory that may have been more dominant than the line score suggested and indicated that, although winning six of their previous seven was nice, there are still a few things for the Royals to figure out.

Early, it looked like the KC Royals may be able to get something going against CC Sabathia. Some people (me) thought that all the hard-hit outs would start falling and make it a ballgame. He was getting hit hard—those hits were just at people.

Nope.

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The KC Royals never figured out Sabathia, or Tyler Clippard, or anyone else the Yankees trotted out Tuesday. Collecting all of eight hits, the Royals never challenged while the game was in doubt, loading the bases in the seventh and the ninth, with Whit Merrifield up both times.

He struck out the first time and barely—and I mean by the skin of his teeth barely—beat out a double play that brought the Royals one run home to roost in the ninth.

The KC Royals offensive highlight was a bases loaded groundout. Second place was probably Jorge Soler making the most ill-advised attempt at a double in recent baseball history in the fifth.

So… nope.

By then, the Yankees had more than secured the game. Gary Sanchez homered in the third, driving in three runs. An inning later, Chris Carter launched one over the wall in centerfield to score Didi Gregorious and make it 5-0.

Those were the two biggest hits—literally and figuratively—against Hammel, but he wasn’t too great the rest of the time either. He “scattered” (an incredibly liberal use of that term) nine hits and five earned, recording no strikeouts. As good as Jason Vargas has been, Hammel has been the opposite to this point in the season.

Jacoby Ellsbury singled to right to score Starlin Castro in the seventh and Matt Holliday grounded out to score Gregorious in the eighth to round out the night’s scoring. Guhhhh… what a rotten game.

(Alcides Escobar and Mike Moustakas made nice defensive plays. Such is my disdain for what we witnessed tonight that I’m not even linking to them. Do your own legwork.)

Next: Record BTS goes down

Tomorrow’s a new day, however, and it features a quality pitching matchup—Vargas squaring off against Michael Pineda. As best I can surmise, Yankee batters have five hits in 35 at-bats against Vargy. Might the ERA dip below 1.00? We can only hope.