Shock out:Salvador Pérez ended up his career with us the royal $98 m was out for his …….
HR derby! Royals put on power show with 5 dingers
Singer strikes out 10 over seven scoreless frames
KANSAS CITY — After struggling to back up an excellent outing by a Royals starter with some offense for the second consecutive game to open the season, Bobby Witt Jr. found Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney after Saturday’s loss to the Twins and made a promise:
We’ll get you some runs. I promise you that.
It didn’t take long to follow through. Witt and the Royals offense erupted Sunday with an 11-0 blowout win over the Twins at Kauffman Stadium to avoid a series sweep and give Kansas City its first victory of 2024.
“There they go,” Sweeney said to Witt in the dugout after the Royals jumped to a lead on Salvador
There they went — and went and went, because the offense didn’t stop.
The Royals hit five home runs Sunday; Perez, Witt, Maikel Garcia, Kyle Isbel and Nelson Velázquez all went over the fence, marking the 25th game in franchise history with five-plus home runs, and the first since Aug. 20, 2021, at Wrigley Field. The Royals hadn’t hit five-plus home runs at Kauffman Stadium since July 22, 2017, against the White Sox.
The Royals sent 18 players to the plate in the first two innings. Witt was a double shy of the cycle by the third inning. Meanwhile, starter Brady Singer shoved in his season debut, tossing seven scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts, three hits, one walk and two hit batters.
“Ten runs makes it a little easier to be in the zone and trust your stuff,” Singer said. “That was a heck of a first win there for us.”
Singer said he was able to pair his sinker-slider combination with his new four-seamer and sweeper, although Baseball Savant registered just one sweeper and no four-seamers. On Singer’s slider, Twins hitters whiffed 16 times on 26 swings (62%).
Singer stayed locked in even with the Royals running up the score. Kansas City’s starters have allowed just two runs across 19 innings to begin the season — and following Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo, Singer didn’t want to be “the guy that sucked,” he said.
“That’s something I’ve learned over my career is to not slow down,” Singer said. “Don’t take off intensity even if you’ve got a 10-run lead. That was something I told myself early in the game when we got all those runs.”
After Singer’s six-pitch first inning, the Royals pounced on Twins starter Bailey Ober. Witt, who was 6-for-11 in the first series, hit a 110.1 mph single off Ober’s elevated fastball.
“His swing is the one that started it for me,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “He got on top of that fastball for the base hit. … To know that’s where [Ober] lives, and he’s sneaky and can get above your barrel. To work on top of some of those balls was nice.”
