{"id":809656,"date":"2026-09-20T08:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/809656\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T08:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:51:15","slug":"loftin-leads-royals-against-the-pirates-after-4-hit-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/809656\/","title":{"rendered":"Loftin leads Royals against the Pirates after 4-hit game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kansas City Royals<\/a> (67-88, fifth in the AL Central) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> (78-77, third in the NL Central)<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh; Sunday, 1:35 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

PITCHING PROBABLES: Royals: Michael Wacha<\/a> (9-9, 3.34 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 149 strikeouts); Pirates: Lake Bachar<\/a> (1-4, 3.50 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 86 strikeouts)<\/p>\n

LINE: Royals -123, Pirates +100; over\/under is 8 1\/2 runs<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The Kansas City Royals take on the Pittsburgh Pirates after Nick Loftin<\/a> had four hits against the Pirates on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Pirates are 78-77 overall and 41-36 at home. The Pirates are seventh in the NL with 179 total home runs, averaging 1.2 per game.<\/p>\n

The Royals are 67-88 overall and 28-52 on the road. The Royals have gone 38-71 in games when they have allowed a home run.<\/p>\n

The matchup Sunday is the third time these teams match up this season.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Bryan Reynolds<\/a> has 39 doubles, two triples and 17 home runs for the Pirates. Rafael Flores<\/a> is 15 for 36 with a double and two home runs over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a> has 30 doubles, a triple and 18 home runs for the Royals. Michael Massey<\/a> is 11 for 38 with a double and two home runs over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Pirates: 6-4, .271 batting average, 4.60 ERA, outscored by four runs<\/p>\n

Royals: 3-7, .212 batting average, 4.29 ERA, outscored by 12 runs<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Pirates: Kirby Yates<\/a>: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Esmerlyn Valdez<\/a>: 10-Day IL (hamstring), Braxton Ashcraft: 15-Day IL (arm), Isaac Mattson<\/a>: 15-Day IL (hip), Endy Rodriguez<\/a>: 60-Day IL (hip), Mitch Keller<\/a>: 60-Day IL (arm)<\/p>\n

Royals: Tony Gonsolin<\/a>: 15-Day IL (elbow), Connor Seabold: 60-Day IL (lat), Carlos Estevez<\/a>: 60-Day IL (foot), Stephen Kolek<\/a>: 60-Day IL (flexor), Beck Way<\/a>: 15-Day IL (back), Nick Mears: 60-Day IL (shoulder), James McArthur<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Luinder Avila<\/a>: 60-Day IL (forearm), Cole Ragans: 60-Day IL (elbow), Jonathan India<\/a>: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Alec Marsh: 60-Day IL (shoulder)<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kansas City Royals (67-88, fifth in the AL Central) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (78-77, third in the NL Central)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,94104,1351,5343,1092,11161,55483,75686,13960,1629,2161,936,2123,55,2596,2595,99,5973,40028,19,2128,5169,4163,4,15108,64,83780,252,5176,725],"class_list":["post-809656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-baseball","tag-beck-way","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-bryan-reynolds","tag-carlos-estevez","tag-endy-rodriguez","tag-esmerlyn-valdez","tag-event_preview","tag-isaac-mattson","tag-james-mcarthur","tag-jonathan-india","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-kirby-yates","tag-lake-bachar","tag-luinder-avila","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-michael-massey","tag-michael-wacha","tag-mitch-keller","tag-mlb","tag-nick-loftin","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-rafael-flores-jr","tag-royals","tag-stephen-kolek","tag-tony-gonsolin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117302518307206728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809656","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=809656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}