The Kansas City Royals hit the road looking for a better showing \u2014 and to break a trend.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Royals began a seven-game road trip in St. Petersburg, Florida, against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. It was the club\u2019s first time back inside the venue since 2024.<\/p>\n
It was also a special return for Royals starter Michael Wacha. The Royals veteran spent 2021 with the Rays organization and made 23 starts.<\/p>\n
And Wacha looked right at home. He allowed one run across seven innings as the Royals earned a 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n
Wacha earned his fifth win as the Royals improved to 33-46.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the command of a lot of pitches was really good,\u201d Wacha said. \u201cYou know, really tough lineup over there that you\u2019ve got to make pitches to. And for the most part, we did that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wacha displayed two different fastballs. He also mixed in a sinker alongside his usual changeup and curveball. The pitch selection was strategic as the Rays stacked their lineup with six right-handed hitters.<\/p>\n
The Rays\u2019 (43-32) lineup created opportunities for Wacha to feature his sinker and cutter exclusively to the right-handers. The approach led to 10 groundouts \u2014 including a key double play in the first inning.<\/p>\n
And when he needed it, Wacha reached back with his four-seam fastball. In the seventh inning, Wacha used the heater to avoid potential trouble. Wacha struck out Rays catcher Nick Fortes with a 94.4 mph fastball.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave us an outstanding chance to win,\u201d Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.<\/p>\n
Wacha recorded his 11th quality start of the season. He has pitched at least six innings in seven of his 10 previous starts against the Rays.<\/p>\n
The Royals\u2019 offense provided Wacha with enough run support. In the second inning, KC outfielder Lane Thomas hit an RBI double down the left-field line. Later, Carter Jensen extended his hitting streak to 13 games with an RBI single.<\/p>\n
Jensen owns a .365 batting average since June 6. This season, the KCMO native ranks among the top American League rookies in extra-base hits (26), RBIs (40) and hits (59).<\/p>\n
Both Royals runs came off Rays starter Drew Rasmussen. He allowed four hits and struck out five batters in six innings.<\/p>\n
The Royals preserved their 2-1 lead. And from there, Alex Lange recorded his sixth save with a scoreless frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d Jensen said of the victory. \u201cTake the momentum, the series win this past weekend and carry it into this road trip. I think it\u2019s huge. … We\u2019re just gonna keep that ball rolling and keep the momentum going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kansas City Royals hit the road looking for a better showing \u2014 and to break a trend.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,2314,2317,2313,21682,2413,91372,936,2123,55,2596,2595,19,2310,2304,2318,2308,2319,5169,4,252,68,1039],"class_list":["post-733643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-finals","tag-baseball-games","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-carter-jensen","tag-champion-seasons-in-major-league-baseball","tag-john-schreiber-baseball","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-michael-wacha","tag-mlb","tag-royals","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-world-series"],"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\/733643","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=733643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}