Just enough

There isn't some sort of secret sauce when it comes to winning one run games, but I suspect a timely "big" hit is part of the recipe. The Royals got that from Salvador Perez and Nick Loftin on Saturday. On Sunday, it was Michael Massey's turn to provide the juice in the form of a two-run laser in the top of the eighth. That powered the Royals to a 5-4 win against the Detroit Tigers and a series split.

I'd hazard that a split of the four-game set was a good outcome given that the Royals dropped the first two games. All seven games in the Motor City this season have been settled by a single run. The two victories earned over the weekend were the only two games the Royals won in the Detroit. At least they finished strong.

Look! A baseball unicorn!

That's Lane Thomas leading off the game with a home run off Detroit starter Framber Valdez. It's a unicorn not because it barely scraped over the fence, but because Thomas went to the opposite field. Thomas, a specialist of sorts against left-handed pitching almost never goes to the opposite field in the air. This season, just 14 percent of his batted balls have gone to right field. His spray chart prior to Sunday looks tilted.

I would say he has warning track power when going to the opposite field, but that sort of feels like looking at a glass that's almost empty and declaring it full. Basically, if Thomas is taking a pitch and going the other way with it, it's going to be an out. So if you were looking for a good omen to open the Sunday matinee, the Thomas home run that had just enough to clear the wall would certainly qualify.

The Royals tacked on another first inning run off of Valdez, who looked all out of sorts in the early going. A single from Nick Loftin, a plunk of Salvador Perez on the elbow guard and a walk to Isaac Collins loaded the bases with two outs. Tyler Tolbert chopped a ground ball to second that looked fairly routine, but it was booted by Hao-Yu Lee and Loftin scored from third.

Perhaps there was a collective sigh of relief from the Tigers dugout when Valdez retired Luke Maile to end the inning. In Valdez's last outing, he went only two-thirds of an inning while allowing six runs. His 2026 season has been inconsistent which means the lefty is far from the ace—or even the number two starter behind Tarik Skubal—the Tigers envisioned when signing him to a three-year, $115 million contract last winter.

The Royals would tack on another run in the fourth via a Tolbert walk and Maile double. Valdez survived five, but the Royals made him work, collecting four hits and three walks in total. The Detroit starter needed 97 pitches just to get that far.

Meanwhile, Royals starter Luinder Avila was on similarly shaky ground for most of the afternoon. After opening the game in fine fashion—he retired the side in the first on 12 pitches—Detroit started to put runners on base. The Tigers drew two walks in the second and a single in the third. They put two on the the fourth by mixing it up. They had a single and a walk.

Fortunately for Avila, the bouts of wildness were sandwiched around outs and he was able to wriggle out of any potential jackpots.

Avila didn't leave himself enough rope to escape the fifth. A leadoff double from Lee flipped the lineup over for a third time and was followed by a five-pitch walk to Colt Keith. Kevin McGonigle followed that with a soft liner to center that loaded the bases. So much for a relaxing Sunday afternoon. Manager Matt Quataro was faced with an unenviable choice: Stick with his starter who was still reaching back for 97 and 98 mph on his four-seamer and sinker but spraying his secondaries all over the place or go to his...gulp...relievers.

Q opted for a mixture. He kept Avila in the game to face Gleyber Torres. It was a brush with danger, but Torres bailed out the Royals starter by expanding the zone on a couple of fastballs on 3-2, fouling them off. He finally went down swinging on an elevated slider for the first out.

Overall, I thought Avila's outing to be a bit of a slog. He was missing glove-side with his four-seam, getting a called strike or a whiff on just 12 percent of his pitches. The sinker was leaking arm-side. This was the location of his two high-speed offerings:

He picked up a few more whiffs on his slider, but the majority of those were yanked and easy takes for Tiger batters.

In the zone, if you combine the two charts you get a blend of offspeed down and toward the right-handed batter's box and a cluster of fastballs up and to the left-hand side. Maybe that location was enough to mostly stymie Detroit hitters as they struggled to make hard contact against Avila. That's what saved him and allowed him to go as far as he went. Not a masterpiece by any means, but he kept his team in the game.

Exit Avila and enter Matt Strahm to face the left-handed hitting Riley Greene. I'm going to shock you and give Strahm a little credit here. He jumped ahead with a first pitch strike and, three pitches into the confrontation, was ahead 1-2. Greene dug in and battled, though. On the ninth pitch of the at bat, he hit a squib up the middle. Andrew Velazquez at second base, broke for the ball and appeared to pull up at the last moment. Perhaps it was because he saw Tyler Tolbert at short out of the corner of his eye, but Tolbert was coming behind Velazquez, to back him up. It was all so easy if Velazquez just had kept his momentum going, he could've gloved the ball, taken a step or two, hit second and fired to first. If he had done that, it would've been an inning-ending double play. Instead, the floodgates opened as they tend to do against this Royals bullpen in general and Matt Strahm in particular.

Two runs scored on the Velazquez error. Two more scored when the next batter, Dillon Dingler, lined a 1-2 fastball back up the middle. And as so often has happened this year, Strahm was front and center when the Royals conspired to flip a three-run lead into a one-run deficit.

Avila gets charged with three runs, two earned. It was a difficult afternoon, but I'll give credit to the guy for working around as much danger as he could. As for Strahm in that situation, it's sort of all Q could do, assuming he didn't want to turn to Daniel Lynch IV, who pitched the afternoon before. Lynch hasn't gone in back-to-back games since the end of June. He probably could have and then would've been the correct decision but the manager decided that Strahm was the guy. He was close to getting out of it, but when things are going bad, they tend to go from bad to awful to terrible.

The game stayed at 4-3 through the middle innings. Another one-run game in favor of the Tigers? Come on.

But then, things started shaking in the Royals favor. Lucas Erceg survived the sixth. Newcomer Nate Pearson handled the seventh. Both relievers were the beneficiary of a double play grounder. Useful!

In the top of the eighth Collins blooped a one-out single. After Carter Jensen was rung up on strikes, Michael Massey went down and golfed a slider 399 feet to right. I'm just surprised it wasn't Nick Loftin. I though it was supposed to be Nick Loftin!

Good on Massey for hanging in against a difficult lefty in reliever Drew Sommers who features a tough arm slot. The slider was a pitcher's pitch, especially on a 1-2 count after Massey had seen a pair of elevated fastballs. The location and the swing didn't say home run, but the ball thought otherwise. The Royals grabbed a late 5-4 lead.

They still had to get six outs. Anytime the Royals bullpen is asked to get six outs in a one-run game, the nerves begin to fray. John Schreiber was first up. After he allowed his obligatory baserunner—a walk to McKinstry—the Detroit right fielder tried to force the issue on a Torkelson single to left. He tried to advance to third. Hindsight always wins, but even in the moment the attempt felt desperate and, if we're being honest, just a little dump. Collins threw out McKinstry which got Schreiber off the hook.

From there, Steven Cruz worked around a leadoff walk to Lee and a Keith single to retire the next three batters to secure his second save of the season.

After Strahm, the Royals bullpen threw four innings, allowing three hits and three walks. The only two strikeouts came from Cruz in the final two batters of the game. For once, the tightrope held, and the Royals did just enough to secure the victory.