KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — With a rash of injuries to his starting rotation, Royals manager Matt Quatraro put together a plan to rely exclusively on his bullpen when Kansas City played the Atlanta Braves in their series finale on Wednesday.
He never could have imagined nine relievers would execute it so perfectly, nor tie a major league record in the process.
But by the time struggling reliever Sam Long escaped a two-on, no-out jam by retiring three straight Braves in the top of the 10th, and Salvador Perez slapped a single to right to score MJ Melendez in the bottom half and give , they had done exactly that: tied a big league record by using nine total pitchers in a shutout.
The only other club to use that many in a shutout was Cleveland, which also did it in a 10-inning game in 2016.
“Not only did they pitch incredibly well today,” Quatraro said, “but they had a huge workload these last four or five days. I can’t credit them enough, and keeping in the right frame of mind down there, and just the plan these guys had to execute.”
The nine Royals pitchers combined to allow five hits and one walk while striking out 10.
Long finished off — he of the 7.40 ERA this season — to earn the victory. It came 2 hours, 38 minutes after fellow reliever Angel Zerpa, pitching on no rest, breezed through the first inning and into the second to set the tone.
Jonathan Bowlan was the only Royals reliever to retire more than three batters, going two full innings. John Schreiber struck out the side in the fourth. Hunter Harvey escaped a two-on, no-out jam in the sixth. And the two primary Kansas City closers, Lucas Erceg and Carlos Estévez, made some important pitches and plays in the late innings.
Erceg allowed a pinch-hit single to Drake Baldwin with one out in the eighth, then watched pinch runner Luke Williams swipe second base. But he bounced back to retire Jurickson Profar and Matt Olson and keep the game scoreless.
Estévez managed to snare a liner by Michael Harris II that appeared destined for a one-out single in the ninth.
“I’m glad he caught it,” Quatraro said. “You’re going to throw a shutout, you need some good defense behind you.”
They certainly needed them the way Joey Wentz was pitching for the other side.
Wentz, who was claimed off waivers by the Braves earlier this month, allowed one hit and three walks over 6 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts in a return home. Wentz was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and played at Shawnee Mission East High School in the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, where had one of the best prep baseball careers in Kansas history.
The Braves drafted Wentz in the first round in 2016, but he has largely failed to live up to expectations. He has bounced around several clubs, including Pittsburgh and Minnesota this year, and had a 5.76 ERA heading into his fourth start for Atlanta.
“We never could solve him,” Quatraro said.
Yet they didn’t need to the way the Kansas City bullpen was performing.
The Royals had the luxury of relying on their relievers with a day off Thursday before their series this weekend in Toronto. And they needed to rely on them with injuries beginning to take their toll on their starting rotation.
Cole Ragans, an All-Star last year, has been on the injured list with a left rotator cuff strain, and Michael Lorenzen recently joined him with a left oblique strain. Then on Monday, the Royals announced that All-Star left-hander Kris Bubic would be placed on the IL with his own rotator cuff injury, one likely to end his season.
So, it fell upon a Royals bullpen that wound up with only one player — Thomas Hatch — still available by the time Perez singled off Daysbel Hernández in the 10th inning to give Kansas City the victory.
“It wasn’t easy. There was danger at times there,” Quatraro said. “But you go backwards and see what Sammy did there, and to really execute — that was enormous. But even more so than the 10 shutout innings, the workload they have had and they way they responded, especially a day game after a night game.”
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