KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Before the game, Spencer Torkelson stirred up a portion of Royals Nation with his half-serious response to a Twitter photo clearly showing Kansas City’s Monday night starter Jordan Lyles with a strip of sticky stuff on his left wrist.
“He’s 1-11,” he snarked, referencing Lyle’s won-loss record. “You can have it. Take it.”
That got a rise out of them, for sure, and he kept the needle in once the game started.
Torkelson blasted two home runs and knocked in five runs, nearly bailing the Tigers out of a five-run hole.
Nearly. The Royals got the last laugh in this one, outslugging the Tigers for an 11-10 win Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium.
Torkelson launched a sinker off lefty Daniel Lynch 430 feet to the fountains beyond the left-center field wall, a two-run homer in the first inning. That ball left his bat with an exit velocity of 110 mph.
Then in the fifth, in answer to the Royals’ five-run uprising in the bottom of the fourth, he lofted a 1-2 knuckle curveball from Lynch on a high arc, just clearing the wall in left. That three-run blast put the Tigers back into the game 7-5.
Torkelson's second multi-homer game brought his team leading total to 14. He added a double in the seventh, 10 total bases on the night.
Javier Báez was an energizer, too. Fresh off a one-day reset, he started his day with a stellar diving play and quick throw to take a hit away from MJ Melendez. From there he went on to single, walk, double, steal two bases and aggressively score the Tigers’ sixth run tagging on a shallow line out to left by Akil Baddoo in the sixth inning.
Báez drove his third hit of the game in the ninth inning. His RBI single was part of a two-run rally off Royals closer Scott Barlow. The Tigers trimmed an 11-6 deficit to 11-10 and had the bases loaded with two outs.
Barlow, at 34 pitches, got Riley Greene to line out to center to end it.
The Royals first extended their lead with a pair of runs off right-hander Beau Briekse in the bottom of the sixth. Dairon Blanco, who had a four-hit night, ripped an RBI double and scored on a double by Maikel Garcia.
Blanco, who came in hitting .188, ended up a homer shy of hitting for the cycle. He just missed that in the bottom of the eighth. His drive off reliever Brendan White hit off the wall in left, an RBI double.
Garcia had four RBIs on the night, Blanco three.
It was a curious outing for Tigers’ lefty starter Tarik Skubal. It was his third start back after his return from flexor tendon surgery. He’d pitched two scoreless, four-inning stints in his first two. And the way he started Tuesday, it didn’t look like he would give up any runs again.
He set down six straight, striking out three of them. He breezed through the first two innings in 20 pitches (16 strikes). He was bullying Royals’ hitters with 97-mph four-seam and two-seam fastballs.
But things changed for Skubal starting in the third inning. His velocity dropped, as did the sharpness of his command and pitch shapes. Blanco tripled in a run and scored on a sacrifice fly.
Then came the avalanche in the fourth. The first seven hitters reached base and five of them scored. The sixth, Melendez, was picked off third base with no outs by catcher Jake Rogers.
But the Royals hit everything Skubal threw up there. Doubles by Matt Duffy and Freddie Fermin, singles by Edward Olivares and Blanco. It ended up being a 32-pitch, five-run inning, putting the Tigers in a 7-2 hole.
