The Kansas City Royals turned to their bullpen Tuesday night against the New York Yankees with two starters missing on the injured list.<\/p>\n
And things didn\u2019t go well.<\/p>\n
The Yankees (33-22) bludgeoned the Royals early. New York scored seven runs on Royals opener Bailey Falter and chased him after 2 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
The hit parade continued against relievers Luinder Avila, Steven Cruz and Eli Morgan. The Royals also had utilityman Tyler Tolbert pitch the ninth inning. It was his second relief appearance this season.<\/p>\n
Each pitcher gave up at least a run in the lopsided 15-1 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can pretend that we aren\u2019t in a hole as much as we want,\u201d Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino said. \u201cBut we are. You know, it\u2019s past Memorial Day now. We\u2019ve got to dig ourselves out. And I think we are capable of doing it. But we do have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Royals (22-33) have now lost 12 consecutive regular-season games to the Yankees. It\u2019s their second-longest losing streak to one team \u2014 done most recently from July 23, 2016, to July 15, 2017, against the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were getting our brains beat in,\u201d Royals manager Matt Quatraro said of the club\u2019s mood in the dugout. \u201cNobody wants to stand there and watch that. But that\u2019s the reality of what happened in the game. There\u2019s nowhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
So where do the Royals go from here?<\/p>\n
The nine-game homestand has been a disastrous stretch. The club has dropped six of eight games, so far, and is staring at another potential sweep Wednesday. The Yankees will start right-hander Gerrit Cole in the series finale.<\/p>\n
The Royals were swept by the Boston Red Sox to begin the homestand. After rallying to win the following series against the Seattle Mariners, the Royals are now saddled with more questions regarding their 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n
There have been flashes of excellence. Stephen Kolek threw a complete-game shutout against the Mariners last weekend. Meanwhile, Salvador Perez and Bobby Witt Jr. seemingly found their offensive stride at the plate.<\/p>\n
However, the Royals\u2019 flaws have also been exposed. Injuries have ravaged their pitching staff, and it\u2019s why Tuesday\u2019s drubbing against the Yankees continues to highlight a disappointing trend.<\/p>\n
The Royals have underwhelmed offensively. The stars haven\u2019t shown up consistently, and it\u2019s putting pressure on the pitching staff to overcome it.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Yankees took advantage. The Bronx Bombers recorded a season-high 24 hits. Five players hit home runs \u2014 including Cody Bellinger and Amed Rosario, who contributed to a four-run first inning.<\/p>\n
Falter almost escaped the inning unscathed. After giving up Bellinger\u2019s homer, he nearly was back in the dugout after retiring Yankees DH Ben Rice.<\/p>\n
Rice hit a line drive to Royals outfielder Jac Caglianone. The baseball took a nosedive toward the outfield grass as Caglianone appeared to catch it inside his glove\u2019s webbing.<\/p>\n
Rice was initially called out. However, the Yankees challenged the call and replay review overturned the decision. Different camera angles showed the ball hit the ground as Rice was awarded an RBI single.<\/p>\n
This sent Falter back to the mound. He would give up a two-run homer to Rosario as the Yankees jumped ahead for good.<\/p>\n
Falter allowed seven earned runs on nine hits. He missed over the plate as the Yankees clubbed three homers during his outing.<\/p>\n
Avila didn\u2019t fare better. He allowed three runs in three innings. The Yankees scored in five of the nine frames to win the series outright.<\/p>\n
Cruz was the lone bright spot. He allowed a run but recorded four strikeouts while touching upper-90s with his fastball.<\/p>\n
The Royals\u2019 lone run came in the third inning. Witt hit a 386-foot solo homer off starter Cam Schlittler to avoid being shut out as the club scattered six hits in the loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kansas City Royals turned to their bullpen Tuesday night against the New York Yankees with two starters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2309,5,2316,2313,2325,2330,2335,55,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,62,2307,2320,4101,2326,2327,2321,185,2311,2312],"class_list":["post-710309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-ball-and-bat-games","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-competitions","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-baseball-teams","tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","tag-home-run","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-outdoor-sports","tag-pitcher","tag-relief-pitcher","tag-run-baseball","tag-seasons-in-american-sport","tag-seasons-in-baseball","tag-sports","tag-team-sports","tag-turf-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}