Kansas City Royals: Bats go cold in 2-1 loss against A’s

The Kansas City Royals offense could not muster anything more than a run as they lost 2-1 to the Athletics on Tuesday evening.

I am definitely ready for west coast games to be done. Brett Phillips came up clutch in the top half of the 9th inning on Monday night, and the Kansas City Royals were able to steal a game from the Oakland Athletics, who are one of the most underrated teams this season.

However, there were no late-night heroics on Tuesday evening as Nick Dini‘s sacrifice fly in the top half of the 5th inning was the only run that the Royals were able to score. Jorge Lopez had been pitching well as of late and continued that trend yesterday, but ran into trouble in the bottom of the 7th inning when Matt Olson delivered a 450-foot blast to center field.

Lopez hit the very next batter and Seth Brown made him pay with a double that landed into the right-center field gap. Hunter Dozier may have had a chance to nail the runner at the plate but his throw was off-line. Jacob Barnes and Heath Fillmyer did a fine job of preserving the 2-1 deficit but the offense was shut down by the combination of former Royal Joakim Soria and Liam Hendriks.

Dozier and Ryan McBroom were the lone Royals to hit for extra-base hits off Brett Anderson in the top half of the 4th and 5th innings, respectively. But other than that, Adalberto Mondesi, Jorge Soler, and Cheslor Cuthbert all hit singles.

The team went 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left 4 men on base. The Royals will try to take their fifth series in six tries this afternoon with Danny Duffy on the bump against former Royal Homer Bailey. If you recall, Bailey got the win against his former team on August 26 in a 19-4 A’s victory tossing 6.0 innings of 3-run ball.