Former Met Seth Lugo totally dominated the Yankee lineup with seven shutout innings as the Royals evened the series with a 5-0 win before a crowd of 34,485 that didn’t have much to cheer about at Yankee Stadium last night.
The Orioles beat the Red Sox so the Yankees lead in the AL East is down to a half game. The Royals hold the second spot in the AL Wild Card race, 2.5 games ahead of the Twins and 5.5 ahead of the Tigers who are fourth.
Kansas City’s kryptonite is in the bullpen but Lugo kept the door in left center field closed as he gave up three hits, did not walk a batter and struck out ten in his seven innings of work. Lugo, who lost to the Yankees back on June 10th in Kansas City, improved to 5-2 with a 2.55 ERA in his career against the Yankees.
Lugo, who signed with Kansas City as a free agent, threw 105 pitches, 77 for strikes, and threw first pitch strikes to 20 of the 24 hitters that he faced. The right hander had the Yankee hitters totally off balance with an assortment of sliders, curve balls and four seam fastballs, and only went to a three-ball count on two hitters. “It was just one of those nights,” the former Met said. “I had everything working.”
“That was probably as good a performance against us this year,” Manager Aaron Boone conceded.
Kris Bubic and John Schreiber tossed two scoreless innings out of the bullpen as Royals pitchers struck out a total of 14 Yankees.
Jasson Dominguez was in the lineup in left field as Alex Verdugo took a seat on the bench. It didn’t matter as the Yankees could’ve had Babe Ruth in their lineup, and they weren’t touching Lugo on this night.
“I think he was mixing it up the pitches really well tonight and he was just pounding the strike zone,” said Juan Soto, who was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts but had one of the hardest hit balls off Lugo when he flied out to deep left to end the sixth.
With the way Lugo was pitching, one run seemed like ten. “He’s [Lugo] not making mistakes,” Boone said. “It’s hard to really look one pitch because he’s throwing the kitchen sink at ‘ya and he’s changing speeds on it and he’s got a lead and he knows how to attack. He beat us tonight.”
Marcus Stroman did not pitch badly but he took the loss as he gave up three runs in 5 1/3 innings pitched. The lineup’s really good on the other side. They just put together quality A-Bs and you feel like they’re just very pesky and they just grind out and kinda do their best to get on base and then run. It’s a tough lineup to deal with,” said Stroman.
The Royals broke a scoreless tie with two runs in the third.
Kyle Isbel, the ninth place hitter, led off with a bloop single to left. After taking second on a ground out, he scored the first run on Bobby Witt Jr’s single to left.
Salvador Perez, who had four hits in the opener, lined a ball into the left field corner and Witt Jr scored all the way from first to make it a 2-0 game. Dominguez fielded the ball in left field and may have had a play on Witt Jr but he threw to second where Perez was initially called safe. The Yankees asked for a review and the call was overturned but the damage had been done.
In the fifth, the Royals had a runner on second and two out with Perez due up. Pitching coach Matt Blake made a mound visit to discuss the strategy but the Yankees elected to pitch to Perez who promptly lined the first pitch from Stroman into center field for a run scoring single and a 3-0 lead.
Lugo kept rolling. After giving up a single to Gleyber Torres leading off the first, the right hander retired 17 in a row until Torres (who had two of the Yankees’ three hits) singled with two out in the sixth. Austin Wells had the third hit off Lugo in the seventh with a one out single but he was left at first as the Yankees failed to get a runner in scoring position all game long.
Kansas City added solo runs in the seventh and eighth to methodically put the game away.
Tommy Pham led off the seventh with a home run off of the struggling Mark Leiter Jr to make it 4-0.
In the eighth, Hunter Renfroe led off with a single against Yankee reliever Tim Mayza. Dairon Blanco pinch ran for Renfroe and stole second and third before he scored on a sacrifice fly by Paul DeJong to complete the scoring.
Separation has been hard to come by for the AL East contenders. With 17 games remaining (Baltimore has 16), it appears the race will come right down to the wire. The Yankees will go for the series win tonight with Luis Gil opposing Cole Reagans.
“We really focus on what we can do here. We’re trying to win games and that’s all that matters now,” Soto said. “We don’t care what they [Orioles] do. If they win or loss, good for them, we focus on what we can do every day here.”