By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
In the heat of an intense battle at the top of the American League Central, the Royals fell a game back of the Cleveland Guardians, losing 7-5 on Wednesday afternoon.
A lead off home run from Michael Massey and another from Vinnie Pasquantino in the first inning put the Royals up early. Cleveland would narrow the lead to one run in the bottom half, Josh Naylor grounding out and scoring Andrés Giménez.
But the Royals would extend the lead in the third inning with another home run, this time off the bat of Bobby Witt Jr as the young phenom hit his 28th of the season to left field.
But the Guardians wouldn't go away, again narrowing the lead to one run in the fifth inning on a Steven Kwan single that drove in Jhonkensy Noel.
Kansas City would tack on another two runs the very next inning, an Adam Frazier single driving in the first run as MJ Melendez came across home plate. Two batters later Maikel Garcia, who pinch hit for Massey, would single to bring Paul DeJong in.
The Guardians Bo Naylor hit his 11th home run of the season to narrow the lead to two runs in the seventh inning. Josh Naylor would again narrow the lead to one run with a single scoring Steven Kwan before the game would become even on a single over the head of Witt Jr from Will Brennan that brought in Giménez.
The wheels would continue to fall off in the bottom of the seventh as Noel hit a line drive single to left field that Melendez struggled to field cleanly, scoring Josh Naylor from second base, giving the Guardians their first lead of the game.
A sacrifice fly from Giménez would give Cleveland an insurance run, scoring Lane Thomas who led off the inning being hit by a pitch from reliever Chris Stratton.
The Guardians would bring on Emmanuel Clase to close the game in the ninth, and despite a single from Witt Jr, Clase would notch his AL leading 39th save and lower his ERA to 0.58.
Lucas Erceg would be saddled with the loss, his first blown save and loss since joining the Royals, falling to 2-4 on the season. In the loss it was Pasquantino that led the way hitting going 4 for 5 with one RBI.
The Royals are now one game behind the Guardians for first place in the AL Central, but did take three of four games from them on the series.
Next up Kansas City travels to Houston to take on the Astros in a four game weekend series. The first game is on Thursday with Brady Singer scheduled to take on Hunter Brown. First pitch is at 7:10pm with a 6:30 pregame on KFEQ.