Fought Back in The Finale | Royals Close Out Series With a Win

Fought Back in The Finale | Royals Close Out Series With a Win

On a beautiful afternoon at Kaufman Stadium, all set for the series finale between the Royals and the Cardinals. And there is the former Cardinal and current Royal right-hander Michael Waka. His 10th start of the season, a sparkling 296 ERA. He’s reeled off four consecutive quality starts and he goes against his former team for the fifth time in his career. Rzar ready to go for the Cardinals. He’s got 10 hits on the road trip and a shot to right center field is down for a leadoff hit for Newbar. 11 hits on the road trip and the Cardinals offense in flight here in the first. One-on-one out for Donovan. The fourth best average in the National League at 316. Runner goes. That ball dumped down the left field line. That is going to drop in fair and kisses the chalk. And what a play by Cana. That ball took some funny spin and nearly spun past him, but Donovan serves one down the left field line. And in the Cardinals have first and second, one out. Two on, one out. And here is Aronado. Strike call. Walka continued to try to hit that outside corner. Got the call from Doug Eddings, a home plate umpire. And that was a big big outs. And now Wilson Contrus bats with runners first and second and now two out. And his two- two pitch to Contras is swung on and missed. He went with a slider and he worked that outside corner to perfection. lurks around the two singles. Well, the Cardinals turn to Matthew Liberator to wrap up this series and this road trip. He’s been terrific. Seeks his sixth quality start and his fourth win. And now Perez trying to find his way out of a slump. One for his last 21. There’s a liner into center field that’s going to drop for a hit. Scott gets to it in a hurry and Salvi will stop it first with a two out single. Next up is Mark Cana. Mark Cana playing for the first time in this series. And there’s a soft liner out into center field dropping in for a hit. Salvi to second. So the Royals have two singles in the first inning. Now it’s up to Vinnie Pasquantino to see if they can cash in. Royals are just one for 16 in the series with runners in scoring position. So the runners will take off three and two here with two outs. There they go. And a swing and a miss. Liverour with back-to- back sliders ends a Royals threat in the first inning. So over the second inning, the Cardinals have two hits. So after the sacrifice, a chance for Nukebar to plate the first run or two. Big spot early in this game, especially the way that the Royals offense has struggled preventing runs becomes all the more important. Swung on and missed. Huge strikeout for Waka. So once again, the Cardinals waste a couple of singles. We go to the bottom of the second. No score. Yes, we do. Freddy Fine has gone 0 for one headto-head with Libby. There’s a swing and a miss. A pitch in the dirt. Poso picks it. Tags out his counterpart. Three strikeouts for Matthew Liberator. So runner first base, two away now out of the stretch. The pitch on the way. A swing and a miss. A high fast ball strikes out Blanco. So Brendan Donovan will bat with one out. He had a flare single to left field his first time. Donovan takes a called third strike on a curveball and that’s Walker’s fourth strikeout. and two down in the third inning. Contras struck out in the first inning. Here’s Waka’s one-two. Contras takes a fast ball, a rip at it. That was up and in and he missed and now Waka has struck out five in three scoreless innings. Nobody’s broken through yet. Nine combined hits, but also 10 left on base. Yeah, been having a little bit of traffic. Walkas’s got that swing and miss going. He’s got five strikeouts. So, one away for Alec Berles. fly to center in the second inning. And that one driven a long way towards center. Blco on the run track wall. It is gone. Berles with a homer into the wind and the Cardinals with a solo shot. Strike first again. It’s one to nothing. We have talked about this a lot with Alec Berles. When he gets hot, he is scorching hot. It’s a slider. It’s down and in. Right in the sweet spot there of Berles and the shot to dead center field to make it one- nothing. One- nothing St. Louis with Hunter Renfro leading off the bottom of the fourth. The game’s only run, a home run from Alec Burles. The Royals offense continues to struggle. Swung on lined and it skips past to third baseman Aronado and veers into foul territory and Renfro will end up at second base with nobody out. That would have been a great play even for Aronado, but that ball was scorched and the Royals down one- nothing. Renfro at third with two down. Be a good time for Blanco’s first hit of the season. Oh, you got to believe that. Lined up the right field line. Fair and down into the corner. Renfro scores. Blanco goes diving into second base and he has a two out RBI double. So, is that the wind I feel blowing into the booth, Denny, or is that a collective sigh of relief? And the Royals dug out exhaling after getting a two out run in the fourth inning to tie it. So, backto-back two out hits and Waka gets a mound visit from Brian Sweeney. 81 pitches now for Waka and John Shriber has started warming up in the Royals bullpen. So, now Contrus Wonka has struck him out twice today. And a flare into shallow center. Blanco coming in to make the catch and that’ll do it. Cardinals get a couple of hits, but they strand both runners. You know what we don’t talk about anymore? Oh boy, Liberty’s going through the third time through the lineup. That just doesn’t seem to be a thing right now. It’s not. Matthews had one one, two, three inning. He’d like to finish with a flourish here. It’s over 90 stressful pitches. This one to first tricky hop and Contras stay with that. Liberators retired seven straight. Backto back one, two, three innings for the Cardinals lefty. One-1 tie. Bottom of the seventh inning. Both teams have made a change. Chris Roycraftoft is on the pitch for St. Louis. And Drew Waters is going to pinch hit for Dyron Blanco. Line fair up the right field line and down into the corner. And how far will he go? It gets away from Nbar. And Waters will make the turn and he will end up at third base with nobody out. If you’re up there to pinch hit, and that’s exactly a pinch hit triple is valuable, especially with nobody out. And it’s a tie game here in game three. That is beautiful. Bring the infield in. You got the meat of the order up. The Royals got to come through here. And now the infield is in halfway for Mikel Garcia. Here’s the pitch. Garcia hits a ground ball. Base hit right field. Here comes Waters down from third and the Royals lead 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh. And that’s how the Royals greet Chris Royoff. He has thrown two pitches. Waters has tripled. Garcia has an RBI single. Burlesin’s responsible for the Cardinals only run. Solo homer back in the fourth. Could be two. Backand flip for one. W turn for two. Just what they were looking for. What a beautiful roll him up. That’s right. First man sure, second man quick. 24th pitch is a season high for ERS. And half of them have been out of the strike zone. One-run game in the eighth. Potential tying run at second. Potential go-ahad run at first. Another big spot for Lucas Ersk. Swinging a miss. Got him with a fast ball up. Boy, the Cardinals are leaving their entire team on base in this game. Two more left. The Royals maintain their two to1 advantage. One-run lead. Carlos Estz in to save it. He has 12 saves this season in 14 tries. The Royals are trying to salvage this series against the Cardinals. They dropped the first two, hoping to avoid a sweep today. Now Donovan’s up. He is three for four today. Donovan with three three hit games over the last four that he’s played. He has seven three hit games this year. Swing and a shot for the right field corner. That is down for a base hit. A four hit day for Donovan. He’s in scoring position as the tying run with one out. You said it earlier, Chip. The Cardinals not going away quietly. So now the Cardinals have the tying run in scoring position. They have Aronado and Contraras coming up. Highf fly ball. Foul territory. Fighting the win. Perez. He’s got it. Huge out as Aronado fouls out. And now Wilson Contrarus. Over 25,000 at Kaufman Stadium on their feet open for a series ending win. Deep to right. Renfro’s there. Ball game coming. Carlos Steves locks it down. The Royals salvage the series. They beat the Cardinals two to

Michael Wacha went to work, and Dairon Blanco and Maikel Garcia came through to secure the win in the series finale.
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