By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Kansas City Royals snapped a four game losing streak in walk off fashion on Thursday afternoon, defeating the New York Yankees 4-3 at Kauffman Stadium.
Royals starting pitcher Alec Marsh and Yankees starter Nestor Cortes exchanged scoreless frames for the first three innings before the Royals would break into the run column in the fourth inning.
Following a walk by third baseman Maikel Garcia, shortstop Bobby Witt Jr would extend his career best hit streak to 14 games with a single which would promptly be followed up with first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino finding a gap in center field for a two RBI double, putting the Royals up 2-0.
Marsh spun a gem in the series finale, giving up just one hit through seven scoreless innings, striking out seven batters and walking two, before handing it off to the bullpen.
However that is where things would go awry for the Royals. Reliever John Schreiber would come on to face Anthony Rizzo to open the eighth, and after one pitch would give up a home run to draw the Yankees closer.
After recording the first out, a fielding error by second baseman Garrett Hampson would put Austin Wells on first, who would then get pinch ran for by Jahmai Jones. Jones would score two batters later, Anthony Volpe grounding into a fielders choice to knot the game at two runs apiece.
Angel Zerpa would allow the third run to score, although it was charged to Schreiber, as Trent Grisham would score on a single from Juan Soto, giving the Yankees their first lead of the day 3-2.
It looked like the Royals losing streak was going to move to five games, with two outs and Drew Waters standing on first Kyle Isbel stepped into the box. Isbel would work the count full before hitting a single, allowing Waters to advance to third and bringing Garcia to the plate.
With runners on the corners, Garcia watched the first two pitches and got up 2-0, before depositing a hit down the left field line and into the corner, bringing across Waters and Isbel for the walk off victory.
Manager Matt Quatraro, who was ejected in the sixth inning, expressed in his postgame press conference how proud he was of his team for battling back.
"I couldn't be more proud of those guys, I mean you're down, that's a really good team with an elite closer coming in, we've talked so much about it but I never get tired of bragging about them," Quatraro said.
"The way they go about it, the way they hustle, the way they never quit, I mean I've talked about it, it's inspiring to me to come to work everyday to be around these guys."
The Royals will now hop on a plane and head to Los Angeles and Dodger stadium for a three game weekend series with the Dodgers, the start of a nine game road trip. Cole Ragans will open the series for Kansas City against Gavin Stone for the Dodgers. First pitch is at 9:10 pm with pregame at 8:30pm on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).