Kansas City Royals: Mondesi collects 40th steal in loss to Twins

The 2019 season has not gone as planned for the Kansas City Royals but Adalberto Mondesi achieved a milestone in the loss to the Twins.

Another day, another milestone. Unfortunately, it was also another loss for the Kansas City Royals. In the last month or so, the team has seen Jorge Soler break the single-season home run record, Ian Kennedy become just one of four MLB pitchers to have 20 wins and 30 saves in different seasons, and on Friday, it was Adalberto Mondesi‘s time to shine.

In the top half of the 3rd inning, Mondesi hit a ground ball that resulted in Nick Dini being thrown out at second base and it didn’t take long for the 24-year old speedster to take off for second. He slid in well ahead of the throw, collecting his 40th stolen base of the season. Shortly after that, he stole third base as well for his 41st of the year.

If you recall, Mondesi missed nearly a month and a half when he dove for a ball in foul territory back in mid-July. He ended up dislocating his shoulder and made his return to the team on September 1. If he doesn’t miss that time, there is no doubt that Mondesi eclipses the 50 stolen base mark. We’ll have to wait until 2020 to see if he can reach that mark.

Eric Skoglund made a spot start for Jakob Junis, who was shut down last week with arm fatigue. He lasted just 4.0 innings, allowing 3 hits, 2 earned runs but didn’t strike out any batters. That’s been the book on Skoglund, who entered the game with a lousy 1.29 K/9. He relies heavily on groundballs to get outs and is susceptible to getting knocked around when that’s not happening.

The offense got on the board via an Alex Gordon RBI double in the top half of the 6th inning. Hunter Dozier decreased the deficit with an RBI single in the top of the 8th inning but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double. Still in the 8th inning and with Soler on third, Gordon bounced into an RBI groundout to make it a 4-3 Twins lead. However, that’s all they could muster and fell by that same score.

If you’re counting at home, Jorge Soler has now gone 4 games without a home run and is still tied with Mike Trout for the American Lead league in home runs.

Luckily for Soler, Trout is done for the season so we’ll have to see if he can climb to the top of the mountain in Game 3 of this series on Saturday.