KANSAS CITY — With two on and no person out to start the seventh inning, the Royals bullpen was stirring to arrange to assist starter Michael Wacha out of a sticky state of affairs in a tie ballgame.
Wacha turned to his protection for assist as an alternative, watching the infield flip an atypical 3-4-5 double play to get the lead runners out, and Wacha completed the body unscathed with a strikeout.
The Royals stole the momentum with their high-baseball-IQ play and turned it instantly into 4 runs within the backside of the seventh inning en path to their 8-3 series-finale win over the Cardinals on Saturday night time at Kauffman Stadium.
Taking part in first base on the thirteenth anniversary of his Main League debut, Royals captain — and No. 13 — Salvador Perez was instrumental in getting that double play began, fielding a pointy hopper off of Tommy Pham’s bat and firing it to second baseman Maikel Garcia for the primary out. Garcia then threw to 3rd base to make the most of Paul Goldschmidt’s baserunning gaffe for the second out.
Perez and Garcia then performed massive roles within the Royals’ massive inning: Garcia knocked within the go-ahead run together with his RBI single and scored from second base on Bobby Witt Jr.’s triple. The Ok was rocking after Witt’s eleventh triple of the yr, MVP chants making their manner via the ballpark once more.
Perez turned it up even louder together with his twenty first residence run of the season. The swing earlier than, Perez took one out to left discipline, nevertheless it landed simply foul. So, Perez took the subsequent pitch to the alternative discipline, a Statcast-projected 395-foot two-run blast to right-center discipline.
The Royals added on two within the eighth with Kyle Isbel’s triple — his third hit of the night time — and Witt’s RBI single. And Lucas Erceg notched a four-out save, his first as a Royal, by working via jams within the eighth and ninth innings to assist the Royals seize a victory over their I-70 rivals.
