Royals postpone the inevitable, but the inevitable still came

You know, it’s a good thing that Idris Elba’s character, Marshal Stacker Pentecost, yelled in his iconic Pacific Rim speech, “Tonight, we are cancelling the apocalypse!” Postponing the apocalypse is not as definitive nor as interesting, not just because it would imply that the mediocre sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising was on eventually on its way, but because in that scenario the apocalypse would still happen and the characters might as well have gone on a trip to a beach instead of fighting kaiju in giant mechs whilst neurally linked to each other.

Anyway, John Rave did not cancel the apocalypse; he merely postponed it, and the Kansas City Royals lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3.

This was another one of those snoozefests until the late innings, the type that the Royals seem happy to play recently. Kansas City had a chance in the second inning, with a Michael Massey double, an Isaac Collins walk, and a Patrick Corbin wild pitch to put runners on second and third base. But Kyle Isbel bailed Corbin out with a fly ball.

The Royals also threatened in the fifth inning, and to be fair to them they did quite well—but the Diamondbacks did better. Matthew Lugo walked and Carter Jensen also walked, and then Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino followed those up with line drives. Normally you’d take that, but great defensive plays by second baseman Ketel Marte and Tommy Troy, respectively, defused the situation.

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On the pitching side of the ball, Royals starter Michael Wacha did pretty well, though he did walk four in his six innings of work. Aw, who are we kidding—zero runs? Six innings? I’ve seen the Royals bullpen before, and it’s always a bit of a shock to see a Royals pitcher be able to put zeroes on the board at all.

Speaking of the bullpen, Connor Thomas and Alex Lange allowed a run each in the eighth and ninth innings, the first a sacrifice fly and the second a solo Tim Tawa home run. That put the Diamondbacks up 2-0 in the ninth inning, and it sure looked like the Royals would lose.

I mean, they still did, but John Rave did postpone the apocalypse. After Nick Loftin hit a sweet opposite-field double reminiscent of prime Billy Butler, Rave stepped up to the plate with the Royals down to their last out. He crushed a hanging changeup to right field to tie the game.

That was, by far, the best part of the game, and you could sort of tell what would happen afterwards. The Royals bullpen is not a unit that generally pitches well, which makes it particularly vulnerable to a war of attrition. Sure enough, in the 10th inning Steven Cruz walked Nolan Arenado and gave up a single to Tawa, who drove in Gabriel Moreno. And in the 11th inning, Anthony Gose gave up a triple…ish…to Lourdes Gurriel Jr., which was aided by some questionable defense by Rave. This scored Ildemaro Vargas, who had advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt. Ketel Marte then hit a sacrifice fly, and while the Royals had previously tied the game up again in the 10th inning, they could not do so for a third straight inning. Final score: 5-3, Diamondbacks.

Watching this bullpen is a baseball crime. They are so bad, in every way possible. Tonight, the most egregious bullpen statistic was one: that’s how many strikeouts the whole unit got in five innings of work. You can’t do that. You especially can’t do that in extra innings when any contact moves people over.

Whatever. Go to bed, you weirdos. We’ll see you for more Royals baseball tomorrow, if you can take watching this bullpen again.