KANSAS CITY -- Thanks perhaps to the Homer Bailey trade completed just minutes before the start of the series finale, the Royals wound up emptying their bullpen. Left-hander Brian Flynn got the emergency start and he was tagged for eight hits and seven runs in two-plus innings.

From there, the Royals battled back, but eventually fell, 12-8, to the Tigers at Kauffman Stadium. They closed a 10-4 deficit to 10-8 before finally succumbing. Kansas City had won the first two games of the series.

Neither Flynn nor manager Ned Yost made any excuses for Flynn¡¯s poor start -- even if Flynn didn¡¯t get much notice before the outing.

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¡°Why would it be that hard for him?¡¯ Yost said. ¡°He¡¯s in the bullpen. When I call down, I don¡¯t give him an hour¡¯s notice.¡±

In all, the Royals used six pitchers.

¡°I don¡¯t think, generally as a team, we pitched well,¡± Yost said. ¡°There are days the pitching has to cover the offense and there are days the offense has to cover the pitching. It was just one of those days we didn¡¯t get it done.¡±

Flynn, too, said the emergency start shouldn¡¯t have been that big of a challenge.

¡°I wish I could make excuses,¡± Flynn said. ¡°But we had enough time in here to get ready. I actually had to slow down a little. I wanted to make sure I didn¡¯t overdo it.¡±

Flynn carried a three-run lead into the third. But the first six Tigers got on base before Flynn yielded to right-hander Jorge Lopez. After the smoke cleared, Detroit had a 7-3 lead.

¡°I kind of just let things snowball,¡± Flynn said. ¡°We had the matchup with the lefty we wanted to start the inning, and you have to keep him off the base. From there, I lost another lefty and that really hurt. It just snowballed and I couldn¡¯t stop the bleeding.¡±

The red-hot Jorge Soler led the Royals¡¯ offensive barrage with a double, home run (his 25th) and three RBIs. Soler, over his last 11 games, is hitting .384 with three doubles, four home runs and 11 RBIs.

¡°When they scored seven and took the lead [9-3], we possibly thought the game was over,¡± Soler said through interpreter Pedro Grifol, ¡°but it was impressive the way we came back and scored some runs.¡±

Whit Merrifield tripled in a run, extending his hitting streak to 12 games.