Royals lose thriller to Cardinals in extras, 5-2
A sweep against the Saint Louis Cardinals was just what the Royals were looking for. With two games down, and two to go, the Royals would ask something big of Jason “Vargy pitched good” Vargas.
Vargas started the night off with a single up the middle to Matt Carpenter. He then got two straight outs, but ran into some trouble when he loaded the bases with two outs. Vargas would get out of the jam with no damage done.
In the second inning, a bobbled ball led to the Cardinals’ first run, but it was scored as an earned run. The top of the third would go by much better for Vargas. Vargas did not bring his “A” game, allowing hits in almost every inning he pitched. Vargas then allowed Matt Carpenter to score, giving the Cardinals a 2-0 lead. Vargas threw 8.0 innings, and only allowed.
Kelvin Hererra would be the one to lose the game for us in the 11th inning, when the Cardinals broke the 3-2 tie. Hererra would be hung with 3 ER.
The offense got off to a slow start, again. They went 1-2-3 in the first. Alex Gordon led off the second inning with a walk, but the Royals could not score him. The Royals would continue to look lost at the plate.
Alcides Escobar led off the sixth inning with a single to break up Adam Wainwright’s no-hitter, but failed to score. A double from Alex Gordon in the 7th put the tying run at the plate, but there’s a theme. They still couldn’t score either of them. In the bottom of the ninth, the Royals scored two runs with the bases juiced to tie the game.
Another wonderful start squandered by our bullpen. Of course, if our offense had shown up sometime before the 9th inning, we would’ve had a chance.