The Royals are turning losing into an art form

As Royals fans, we are well acquainted with different types of losses.

There are the terrible losses. A 10-1 bludgeoning would be an terrible loss. There are the tragic losses. Those tight games that tilt in the favor of the opposition in the game's dying moments. Then, there are the dreadful losses. That's an expected loss where the team just, for whatever reason, fails to show up.

Thursday's game was a new one for me, a combination of the three: A tragically, dreadfully terrible loss.

I don't have the energy—or the desire—to sort through the history of losses with this franchise to determine where this 10-9 walkoff loss to the Detroit Tigers ranks in worst losses in team history. Just knowing that it's in the conversation is enough. I keep telling myself that it's April, the season is young, and, if this team somehow puts it all together, no one will remember the terrible days early in the year.

Cripes...when is it going to stop?

This was an absolute bonkers ballgame, so as we try to sort through the baseball carnage that was rendered at Comerica Park in Thursday afternoon's 10-9 debacle, it might be best to start in the seventh inning. For purposes of our collective sanity. It was in that frame that the Royals offense finally found that spark that has been so lacking through most of the first 18 games of the season.

The Royals were down at that point, 6-2, and marching toward another torpid defeat. Detroit starter Keider Montero had thrown 76 pitches and had largely been in control. The two runs he surrendered were both tallied when Bobby Witt Jr. tapped home plate following leadoff doubles. 

Montero stumbled, though. He gave up another leadoff double—this one to Jonathan India who roped one down the left field line. Jac Caglianone, fresh off his three-hit evening less than 24 hours prior, drove a single back up the middle to score India. I was not sure chipping away at the lead a run at a time was the best strategy for this Royals offense, but after watching them score two runs in each of the first two games of this series, it was a breakthrough for them just to score three runs total.

After Montero failed to record an out to open the inning, Detroit went to their bullpen, first summoning Drew Anderson. The right-hander, facing pinch hitter Lane Thomas, sprayed four pitches all around, but none of them over, the plate.

It was at this moment home plate umpire Andy Fletcher had to excuse himself for the second time in the afternoon. Perhaps he had the crab legs last night. Perhaps he knew what was in store and just didn't have the stomach for it. Whatever ailed him, he would not return and there was a lengthy delay as the second base umpire retired to the dressing room to don the shin guards and chest protecter of the home plate ump.

When play finally commenced, Kyle Isbel was the first man up. Of course he was going to bunt and squared on the first pitch. The delivery was a four-seamer well up and extremely in. The bunt was more of a defensive action from Isbel who, had the bat not been in his hands, was turning directly into a 94 mph offering. It could’ve been catastrophic. Instead, it was a sacrifice.

Of course, I wasn’t a fan of the bunt in that exact moment. Anderson had missed with his first four pitches and there had been a long delay before he delivered his fifth. I wanted to see him throw a strike. But given the location of the pitch, Isbel really had no choice. He couldn’t pull back the bat. The bunt wasn’t a typical Isbel bunt in that it was firm. Too firm for him to beat it out. Yet it did complete the puropse which was to advance the runners while flipping the lineup over.

Maikel Garcia fell behind 0-2, the second strike coming when he feebly offered at a changeup well out of the zone. All Garcia had to do was put the ball into play. The Tigers infield was back, playing for the out at first and conceding the run. After Anderson missed with another changeup—his third in a row throw to Garcia—he went with an elevated four-seamer. Garcia was tardy, but the swing was perfect as he looped the ball into right. 

On average this year, Garcia swings the bat at 72.2 mph. The swing on the 1-2 fastball registered at 68.5 mph. Safe to say Garcia understood the assignment. He’s become such a dangerous ballplayer.

With the Royals now trailing by two, Witt came to the plate representing the go-ahead run. Witt, as noted previously, had ripped two doubles and scored twice. 

In this instance, the ball did not leave the infield when Witt made contact. He went down for a pitch out of the zone with a half-hearted effort he didn’t mean to commit to. The result broke Statcast in that everything about this ball in play was absurdly slow. The swing, the contact...Nothing registered. The ball was placed in that no-man’s land between the mound and first, not hit hard enough to make it to the second baseman, but too hard for the pitcher to grab it as it dribbled past. A perfect tweener that was good for a single and an RBI to cut the deficit to one.

After a Vinnie Pasquantino fly out, Salvador Perez stepped into the box.

You've watched the games and I've chronicled most of them in this space. Perez has been absolutely wretched at the plate in the early going. There was a moment in the fourth inning that was probably the worst plate appearance I've seen from Perez to this point. It was after Witt's first leadoff double and followed a deep fly out from Pasquantino that moved Witt to third.

Three pitches, not one of them a strike—or even in the same area code as the strike zone—and Perez swung at all three.

He made up for it by battling in an extended plate appearance in that seventh inning.

Perez fell behind in this at bat 0-2! If you thought that the inning was over at that point, no sane person would've held it against you. But new reliever Tyler Holton went extreme in trying to get Perez to chase, resulting in the count running full. From there, Perez fouled off a changeup, a four-seamer and a cutter, all quality pitches on the edges of the zone. Pitch number 10 was another changeup, down and in.

With Perez channeling his inner-Beltre, that ball was crushed. The comeback was complete. The rains came and the tarp was rolled out. The Royals held an 8-6 lead as the game was delayed for a second time.

The seventh inning was pure catharsis.

It all changed two innings later when Lucas Erceg was betrayed by his changeup.

The change is the substitute closer's least effective offering but he will throw it about a quarter of the time to right-handed hitters. He wasn't really close to the zone with the pitch until the final two hitters of the game.

The higher of the two changeups in the zone was the double Riley Greene hit down the line with two runners on with two outs to tie the game. Yeah, Pasquantino probably should've been playing a no-doubles defense at that point, but that changeup is a mistake pitch, far too elevated and centered.

Two pitches, and two changeups, later...the game was complete. A loss of devastating proportions.

Dead in the sixth, resurrected in the seventh, and utterly destroyed in the ninth.

I'm writing the bulk of this about five hours after the game's conclusion. Every word feels inadequate. I wanted to capture some of the positives in the game...because on the offensive side there was quite a bit to like. Following a debacle like that, though, nobody wants to talk about what worked. After scoring nine runs total in the previous four games, the Royals plated nine in a single game...and lost! They lost a game where they scored nine damn runs! Somebody make it make sense.

The bullpen is completely unreliable at this point. Starter Kris Bubic didn't have his finest day on the mound, but for the bullpen to chunder all over this game after the bats supplied an epic comeback is just inexcusable. It's difficult watching this team sleepwalk to 2-1 defeats. It's deflating to see them succumb in this manor. I prefer losing 2-1.

I could write something about how this moment will provide a true test of team character. The Royals were one out—and one strike—away from completing a fantastic comeback and salvaging the series finale. If they can shake off this sweep where they lost all three late, the last one in the most excruciating way possible...if they can prove their mettle...if they can show that momentum does not exist in baseball...The good news is, this is just one loss in a season with 162 games. As bitter a taste this has left, there is opportunity to immediately get right.

I want to believe, but their next stop on this road trip is three in the house of horrors that is New Yankee Stadium. I suppose it could be a good sign that Pasquantino and Caglianone are warming up in time to take advantage of a short porch and the jet stream that pushes balls out to right. Witt is finding his extra base hit groove and Perez finally locked in. Maybe this offense explodes for something like 30 runs in the Bronx over the next three games.

What an agonizing team, though. The pitching is great, but the bats can't get going. The bats erupt and the pitching goes south. We're not even 20 games into the season and it feels as though the Royals live every game on the edge where they're just not good enough. It feels foolish to abandon pre-season expectations before a month is past, but these Royals have shown nothing to make anyone think they're a good team, let alone a club destined for the postseason.

Four weeks ago they held so much promise and today there is just so much frustration.