By MATT PIKE
The Kansas City Royals briefly rallied to take a lead in the eighth inning before the Los Angeles Dodgers tied the game, and Max Muncy singled in Shohei Ohtani in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Dodgers over the Royals 5-4 at Dodger Stadium.
Mookie Betts opened the scoring for the Dodgers in the second inning with a solo home run. A sacrifice fly from Salvador Perez drove in Bobby Witt Jr in the fourth inning to tie the game, but Los Angeles scored two more runs in the seventh inning as Alex Call poked a 3-2 pitch from Royals starter Michael Wacha down the right-field line with first baseman Caglianone playing off the bag against the right-handed hitter. Betts, who doubled and took third on Tommy Edman's flyout, scored. Pinch-hitter Teoscar Hernández's RBI double drove in Call to make it 3-1.
The Royals rallied back to take a lead in the top of the eighth inning scoring three runs. An RBI single from Jac Caglianone's RBI drew the Royals to 3-2 scoring Nick Loftin and moving Witt Jr to second base, and they tied the game on an RBI single from Perez driving Witt across home plate. Carter Jensen's flyout to center gave the Royals a 4-3 lead after Andy Pages' fielding error allowed Caglianone to race home to score the go ahead run.
But, the Dodgers tied it 4-4 on Mookie Betts’ RBI single off reliever Steven Cruz in the bottom half of the inning, scoring Kyle Tucker. In the 10th inning, Muncy belted the ball to the gap in right-center off Lucas Erceg, who fell to 4-4 on the season, scoring Ohtani, who started as the automatic runner at second.
At the plate for the Royals, Witt Jr went 2-for-5 with two runs scored. Caglianone was 2-for-4 with a walk, a stolen base, and an RBI. Perez was 1-for-4 with two RBIs.
Kansas City and Los Angeles wrap up their series on Wednesday night ahead of an off day Thursday for the Royals. Daniel Lynch IV (4-3, 2.45 ERA, 37K's) starts for the Royals against Eric Lauer (6-6, 4.89 ERA, 57K's) for the Dodgers. First pitch is at 9:10pm, pregame will begin at 8:30pm on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
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