The month of August had gotten off to a good start for the Yankees 25 years ago. A narrow win against the below-water Royals opened the month, and the Yankees had two more chances to beat up on the Central squad. Evidently, however, the Yankees used up all of the juice in their bats in game one, as the second in the series saw them muster just a couple of hits and only a late run against Blake Stein and Kansas City. It was a forgettable one, and the Yanks did at least move on in quick fashion.
August 2: Yankees 1, Royals 4 (box score)
Record: 57-45 (3.0 GA in AL East)
Going into the 2000 season, the right-handed Stein had a career ERA approaching six, and had allowed baserunners at a concerning clip. You wouldn’t know it with his start against the Yankees a quarter-century ago today.
After Danny Neagle started his outing for New York by working around a couple of knocks, Stein got right to work in his half when he faced the minimum thanks to a double play ball and his first K of the night to close it out.
In the second, the Kansas City bats woke up against Neagle. Dave McCarty started the inning with a double, before a single put the Royals in prime position. Todd Dunwoody opened up the scoring in this one with a double that put the Royals up 1-0, and kept two runners in scoring position. The next two K.C. batters would tally RBIs as well, with Luis Ordaz managing a sacrifice fly, and Johnny Damon lining a run-scoring double, ultimately putting his squad up 3-0.
While Neagle began to settle in for the Yankees, the damage had already been done, and Stein was cruising pretty much all night for the Royals. The Yankees managed some traffic in the third inning, which featured one of their two hits on the night, from Chuck Knoblauch, but couldn’t make anything of it. This was before Stein went 1-2-3 in the fourth with a pair of Ks, and faced the minimum once again in the fifth.
The Royals scratched across another run in the top of the seventh, when Joe Randa produced a productive groundout that put them up 4-0. All the while, the story remained much the same for Stein, who cruised through the sixth, and worked around a pair of walks in the next inning. The Yankees finally made a peep in the eighth, when Knoblauch reached and Jeter moved him ahead with the squad’s second hit of the game. Paul O’Neill pushed across the Yankees’ lone run in the next at-bat with his sacrifice fly into left.
Stein was done after the inning, putting a close to his surprise gem in the Bronx. He went eight strong innings, allowing just that one run on two hits, keeping the the Yankee bats quiet all night long. The Royals hadn’t mustered much of anything late in the game either, but their three-run second inning was enough for them to cruise on throughout this game.
The Yankees were tasked with taking on Ricky Bottalico in the ninth, with the hopes of overcoming their 4-1 deficit. Those hopes were erased rather quickly, though, as the inning began with quick outs off the bats of David Justice and Tino Martinez. The game ultimately wrapped up with a flyout from José VizcaÃno, as the middling Royals took an easy one in Yankee Stadium.
It was not the follow up the Yanks were hoping for after taking the series opener, as they went mostly silent against Blake Stein and the Royals, and their lead in the East was now shrunk to three games. They would have another crack at Kansas City the next day, as they tried to salvage the tail end of the summer months of 2000.