The KC Royals swept the Cleveland Indians with a 7-6 victory at Kauffman Stadium in 11 innings. The three-game sweep may have ended the Indians chance at earning a playoff spot (7.5 games out of first place and 6.5 out of the wild card). They also ruined the Major League debut of Indians starter Corey Kluber.
Alcides Escobar
The Royals scored six runs off Kluber in the bottom of the first inning. Alex Gordon greeted him with a solo homerun on the very first pitch he threw. Two straight singles gave the Royals a 2-0 lead. With two outs, Eric Hosmer hit a three-run homerun. Jarrod Dyson followed with a triple and Chris Getz drove him in.
The crazy thing is, Kluber made it through four innings and only really was in trouble again in the 4th inning. He exited in the 5th inning with a man on base and one out (the base runner reached via an error).
Meanwhile Bruce Chen didn’t get out of the 3rd inning. He allowed four runs on seven hits and one walk over just 2.2 innings. Everett Teaford followed with 3.1 innings of relief. He allowed two runs via a Carlos Santana homerun in the 5th inning to tie the game at 6-6.
The Royals only collected one hit off three Indians relievers prior to Esmil Rogers entering in the 10th inning. They had a chance to win it in that 10th inning, but Brayan Pena grounded out to end the inning with the winning run on third base.
Rogers could not escape the 11th inning. Hosmer led off the inning with a single and advanced to second base on a sacrifice bunt. After a wild pitch moved him to third base, Rogers got Dyson to fly out. Rogers then walked Gordon intentionally to bring up Alcides Escobar.
The Indians went to closer Chris Perez, who got ahead in the count 1-2 on sliders. With the fourth pitch, he decided to throw a fastball and Escobar deposited it into left field for the game winning single. Too bad less than 16,000 fans were in attendance (probably less by the time the game ended).
The Royals bullpen foursome only allowed one hit over the game’s final five innings (with zero walks).
