Royals can’t capitalize on early mistakes, fall to Yankees, 6-2

They had the chances.

Coming off a win in the series opener against the Yankees, the Royals looked to earn at least a split and move above .500 on their current road trip.

Hoping for Jakob Junis to settle back in and find his groove, Kansas City didn’t get the start they were looking for from the 26-year old right-hander. Facing 19-year MLB veteran in C.C Sabathia, who started his 42nd game against the Royals, the offense couldn’t capitalize on some early defensive miscues from the Bronx Bombers.

Unable to hold an early lead in this one, the Yankees evened the series back up at one a piece by a score of 6-2. After two scoreless innings from both sides, Kansas City manufactured a run in the third thanks to two errors that led to an RBI single by Adalberto Mondesi. In the bottom half, the Yankees finally put a number on the scoreboard, ending a 10-inning drought. Belting a two-run homerun over the right-center wall, Brett Gardner answered the bell to give New York a 2-1 lead.

A solo home run by Mike Tauchman two innings later gave some extra padding to Sabathia for his final inning of work. However, after failing to push across more than one run off of the big left-hander, the Royals wasted no time tagging the Yankees bullpen.

In two at bats against Luis Cessa, Hunter Dozier doubled and Alex Gordon followed with the same, inching Kansas City to within one run. Unfortunately, the game got out of hand in the bottom of the sixth as the Yankees scored two more of Junis, ultimately forcing him out of the game.

New York added one more run of off Brad Boxberger in the late stages, making the score more lopsided than it appeared to be for the first six innings. Tomorrow, the Royals will look to bounce back with a win against Masahiro Tanaka. Kansas City will counter with Heath Fillmyer. First pitch is set for 12:05 CT.