Bats can't dig Royals out of early hole

KANSAS CITY -- The Royals’ offense did what it could to catch up to the Rays on Tuesday night, but what transpired early and poured on late ended up costing too much.

Defensive miscues for the second consecutive night and shaky pitching throughout the game gave the Royals a 14-7 loss to the Rays at Kauffman Stadium for Kansas City’s first series loss this season.

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Brad Keller was coming off a start last week against the Angels that he hoped to build on after scuffling to start the season, but the right-hander ran into bad luck, too many walks and a high pitch count quickly against the Rays. Keller allowed five runs and made it through only 1 2/3 innings, his second-shortest outing this season. He walked three with one strikeout -- and just three whiffs in the 54 pitches he threw.

Keller allowed only two hard-hit balls, according to Statcast, among the nine balls put in play, a better trend than several barreled balls in his first two starts. Randy Arozarena’s single in the first was 107 mph off the bat, finding a gap through second base, and Austin Meadows’ sacrifice fly was 105 mph.

“Still trying to work on some mechanical things from my starts before,” Keller said. “Can’t really focus on mechanics when you’re trying to get outs, and I feel like some pitches I did, some pitches I didn’t. That kind of cost me. It was just tough all around.”

But Keller wasn’t helped by his defense. In Monday’s loss, three of the Rays' four runs were unearned because of errors. On Tuesday, Tampa Bay capitalized on more defensive mistakes from the Royals.

After the Rays hit back-to-back singles to start the game, Whit Merrifield rushed a potential double-play ball for an error, allowing a run to score. In the second inning, Keller issued a leadoff walk to Kevin Kiermaier before getting a ground ball to Merrifield behind second base. But instead of throwing to first base for the out, Merrifield tried to flip the ball to shortstop Nicky Lopez for the double-play ball. Lopez was too far away from the bag to make the tag in time, and no outs were recorded.

“Just sometimes plays don’t get made,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “It’s a hard game. Even some of the easiest plays aren’t all that easy with everything in consideration. I know that’s a play that all of our guys want to make. They want to make plays, they want the ball hit to them. Sometimes we just don’t get it done.”

No errors were issued on that play, but Keller walked Rays catcher Mike Zunino to load the bases. Keller got two outs -- including the sacrifice fly -- but reached his limit when he loaded the bases with a single and his third walk of the inning. Reliever Jake Newberry walked in two runs before getting the final out.

“I can’t pick up my defense when I walk three guys in an inning,” Keller said. “That’s tough. Unlucky bounces and got out of my rhythm. Tried to do too much. Walked guys. It was pretty tough.”

Andrew Benintendi bobbled a single in left field in the sixth for the Royals’ fifth error in two days.

“It’s part of the game,” third baseman Hanser Alberto, who ended up pitching in the top of the ninth inning, said. “We’re gonna keep our head up, keep working hard in practice to get better and make all those plays. And back to helping our pitchers.”

Kansas City’s offense showed life throughout the game -- including Carlos Santana’s fourth consecutive multi-hit game and Lopez’s two-hit game -- but the Rays jumped on relievers Ervin Santana (two runs) and Kyle Zimmer (four runs) to build their lead.

They poured it on late with back-to-back homers against Greg Holland, who normally wouldn’t pitch in a blowout loss but was the only available reliever left after the bullpen had to cover more than seven innings.

“Seems like the miscues are really hurting right now,” Matheny said. “But we’re going to have them, and we have to overcome them from the pitching side or defensively, we’ve got to make up for it somehow. And just like we know when mistakes are made on the mound, we’re going to have defenders who are going to pick us up there as well. There were a lot of things that just kind of snowballed. ... And then the miscues seemed to add just too much momentum to come back from.”