A.L. wild card roundup: Royals, A’s, Tigers lose
Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis both gave up runs for the first time in nearly three months as the Kansas City Royals’ dominant bullpen was touched up Tuesday night in a 7-5 loss to the visiting Chicago White Sox.
Davis replaced Herrera with two on in the seventh inning and walked Jose Abreu to load the bases for Conor Gillaspie, who cleared them with a triple to right-center on a 2-2 pitch to give Chicago a 7-5 lead.
That ended Herrera’s scoreless streak at 30 2/3 innings, dating to June 24. Also snapped was Davis’ shutout streak of 31 2/3 innings, a club record for a reliever, with the first run charged to him since June 25.
The rare bullpen failure prevented Kansas City from gaining ground on A.L. Central leader Detroit, which lost at Minnesota. The Royals remained 1 1/2 games behind the Tigers, but still lead Seattle for the second wild-card spot.
Kansas City used nine pitchers, a club record for a nine-inning game, in a contest that lasted 4 hours, 16 minutes – the longest nine-inning game in Royals history.
Nori Aoki had his second straight four-hit game, including a sixth-inning single that put the Royals up 5-4, but this time the bullpen couldn’t hold it.
Twins 4, Tigers 3
Aaron Hicks hit a two-out RBI single in the ninth inning and Minnesota rallied to beat A.L. Central-leading Detroit at Minneapolis. After J.D. Martinez hit a three-run home run to give Detroit a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth, Trevor Plouffe drew a one-out walk against Joe Nathan (4-4) and was replaced by pinch-runner Doug Bernier.
Bernier scored when center fielder Ezequiel Carrera dived for a line drive off the bat of Kurt Suzuki and missed it, allowing the ball to roll to the wall.
Chris Herrmann ran for Suzuki and scored when Hicks battled Nathan to full count and beat out a bouncer fielded by shortstop Andrew Romine near second base.
Rangers 6, A’s 3
Scott Kazmir allowed a two-run homer to Jake Smolinski, and shortstop Jed Lowrie made an error that led to a pair of unearned runs as host Oakland lost to last-place Texas.
After strengthening their A.L. wild-card lead by beating Seattle in the final two games of a weekend series, the A’s looked sloppy in the opener of a nine-game homestand and failed in their attempt to win three straight for the first time since Aug. 7-9.
Oakland made two errors, threw two wild pitches and got another rough outing from Kazmir (14-9) to lose for the 15th time in 22 games. The A’s remained one game ahead of Kansas City for the top wild-card spot.
Seattle is a game behind the Royals for the second berth.