Royals keep Guards on skids

 The Cleveland Guardians apparently do not like home cooking. Give them the chain restaurant and hotel bed all day, every day.

The Guardians again played like they hate playing in their home park and lost to the Kansas City Royals, 8-3, on Aug. 29 in a Saturday matinee.

Cleveland jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on an Angel Martinez two-run homer in the third, but some shaky infield defense and a leaky bullpen undid the Guardians, who have now lost two straight after winning seven in a row - six of the wins came on a recently completed trip to Denver and Anaheim.

Cleveland fell to 68-68 with the loss and is now 4 1/2 games out of first place in the American League Central race.

A crowd of 31,509 watched, many clad in replica Bob Feller 1936 jerseys handed out before the game to the first 15,000 in attendance. Cleveland is 31-36 at home this year and has lost 10 of its last 14 at Progressive Field.

"There's no explanation for it," Manager Stephen Vogt said of his team's struggles at home."We love playing at home, but we've lost more games than we've won here."

The Royals have also been on a tear. They've won 13 of their last 15 and have two of the best young players in baseball in shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and outfielder Jac Caglianone. Their first baseman yesterday was 15-year vet and potential Hall-of-Famer, Salvador Perez. They are not the Colorado Rockies or Anaheim Angels. And they've come into Progressive Field like they want to wreck the Guardians' season.

The game was tied in the top of the sixth inning when reliever Colin Holderman came on for starter Foster Griffin. The Royals would send 10 men to the plate and score four runs in the frame, which featured an error by Jose Ramirez and a hit which should have been ruled an error on Brayan Rocchio. It was a really ugly inning. 

"That was uncharacteristic of our guys," Vogt said of the defensive struggles."The ball to Rocchio took a weird bounce. I haven't seen replays on the ball to Jose."

Foster Griffin started and went the first five innings and earned a no-decision. He gave up two runs on four hits and struck out four while walking one.

Holderman (6-4) had a pitching line from hell. He worked 1/3 of an inning, gave up four hits, four runs, and took the loss. After a loss like this, one might want to blame the bullpen. But according to MLB.com, Cleveland's bullpen had been best in the AL in the prior 15 games with an ERA of 1.81 over 54 2/3 innings.

Royals' outfielder Joh Rojas had a huge day. He had a pinch-hit two-RBI double in the sixth and connected for a two-run home run in the eighth.

Cleveland's lack of clutch hitting again reared its ugly head, as the Guardians went just 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. 

So it's back at it today. Parker Messick (10-8, 2.50 ERA), the sterling rookie lefty, looks to play the role of stopper vs. Seth Lugo (6-7, 4.61 ERA).



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