By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Royals offense exploded for seven runs over the final three innings on way to an 8-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, winning the I-70 series three games to one.
The Cardinals took the first lead of the game in the second inning on a two run home run from first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. The Royals would draw within one run in the bottom of the third, a groundout from Bobby Witt Jr scoring Kyle Isbel, and would tie the game up in the sixth thanks to a Freddy Fermin single driving in Paul DeJong.
The seventh was the biggest inning for the Royals offense as they scored four runs to pull ahead for good. Maikel Garcia would single to score Isbel, before Garcia would be brought home on Witt Jr's 11th triple of the season. Salvador Perez would blast a two run home run to right center to cap the scoring in the inning.
The Cardinals would add one run in the top of the eighth inning, a single from catcher Willson Contreras scoring Brendan Donovan, but in the bottom half of the inning Isbel would hit his second triple in as many days, his seventh of the season, to bring in Dairon Blanco. Witt Jr would score Isbel for the final run of the game.
Michael Wacha earned the win against his former club, pitching seven innings and striking out six, giving up two runs on five hits. Witt Jr led all hitters going 2 for 4 with three RBI's.
The win improves the Royals record on the season to 65-53 and they now sit just 3.5 games back of the Cleveland Guardians for the top spot in the AL Central. Currently the Royals hold the last AL Wildcard spot and are 2.5 games ahead of the Boston Red Sox.
The Royals are off on Sunday. They open up a crucial three game series against an AL Central foe in the Minnesota Twins on Monday. Brady Singer is set to open the series, the Twins have not announced a starter. First pitch is at 6:40pm with pregame at 6pm on KFEQ.
Injury News
Prior to Saturday's game the Royals placed right handed relief pitcher Hunter Harvey on the 15 day IL, retroactive to August 7th, and recalled right hander Carlos Hernandez
The Royals also scratched second baseman Michael Massey from the lineup on Saturday with back tightness.
Harvey has been battling some mid back tightness and has not pitched since last Sunday against the Detroit Tigers. Harvey had been making small progress over the last few days, but it wasn't enough to make him available to pitch.
And after the bullpen was tasked with 4 2/3 innings on Friday, with Harvey unavailable during the bullpen's collapse, the Royals had to make a move to freshen up their 'pen. This is Hernández's third stint with the Royals this year; the 27-year-old has 6.17 ERA in Omaha this year.
"We kept hoping it was going to resolve itself, and it just hasn’t," manager Matt Quatraro said. "So we need to have a full ‘pen to be able to go after [the Cardinals]. ... He was making small progress, but with as hard as he throws and the violence in his delivery and everything, he wasn’t getting better as quickly as we would have liked.”
As for Massey the Royals are hopeful that Saturday's scratch is just a precaution and he will be ready to go after Sunday's off day. The unpredictability of Massey's back injuries causes some concern.
“He just came in today and didn’t feel well," Quatraro said. "It's not totally debilitating. It’s just that we know we have to manage this. It’s day to day with him. He left feeling good yesterday, came in not feeling as well today. He’s getting a bunch of treatment, and we’ll see how quickly we can get it to resolve.”