Kansas City Royals frustrated as team somehow gives up bunt double against Minnesota Twins: "Royals are a laughing stock. Again"
Friday night's Kansas City Royals game at the Minnesota Twins featured a very rare sight - a bunt double.
With one out in the bottom of the fourth inning, Twins first baseman Joey Gallo standing on third after hitting a triple, center fielder Michael A. Taylor tapped a soft safety-squeeze bunt that traveled just a few inches onto the grass in front of home plate.
With both corner infielders playing in to charge the bunt, Taylor streaked to an unattended first base as Gallo scored. Somehow, no one was covering second base either, and Taylor took full advantage by taking the extra bag before any of the Royals defenders realized what had happened.
The innings blew up in Kansas City's face, as the Twins turned a narrow 3-2 lead into a 7-2 advantage before the third out.
It's been a rough season for the Kansas City Royals, who rallied after a mind-boggling gaffe to keep the game close before eventually losing 8-6 to the Minnesota Twins.
A few things are going right for Kansas City, and the Royals seem incapable of making their own breaks.
Even more galling for the Kansas City Royals was that the team traded Taylor to the Minnesota Twins this past offseason. Taylor is hitting just .244 on the season, but providing Gold Glove-caliber defense and sound, gritty play to the division leaders.
Friday's loss dropped the Kansas City Royals a full 10 games behind the American League Central-leading Minnesota Twins just 27 contests into the 2023 season.
Kansas City fell to 6-21 with the defeat, the second-worst record in all of MLB. The Royals headed defeatedly back to the dugout just one-half game ahead of the moribund Oakland Athletics, an organization that seems intent on achieving the worst season in baseball history.
Yet, depending on the results of Oakland's late game against the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City may fall into a tie for the worst record in the majors with the organization intentionally trying to lose to ease the ballclub's move to Las Vegas.
Sometimes, things get so bad that you just have to laugh.
Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals play twice more
The Twins and Royals are midway through their four-game series, with Minnesota taking the first two wins. The teams will play twice more this weekend, at 1:10 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.