Long ball gives early lead, but wasn’t enough as Royals fall 6-5.

You guys remember the first two innings? That was fun.

Bats were hot early thanks to a total of seven home runs, however, the early scoring for the Royals did not last as they fell to the AL East leaders 6-5.

Garrett Richards early game struggles continued from last start to tonight. Whit Merrifield started the game off with a single. Then the two-hole, Jorge Soler sent a liner the other way beating the shift giving the Royals first and second with no outs. Carlos Santana followed those singles by sending a towering 424 ft. home run into the Fenway faithful for the early 3-0 lead.

Later in the first, Emmanuel Rivera, the 24 year-old Puerto Rican third baseman made his debut. On the first major league pitch he saw, Rivera drove an opposite field liner into the outfield for his first major league hit.

The high of that first inning wore off quickly when Enrique Hernandez, the Red Sox lead-off hitter, hit his eighth home run of the year off of Danny Duffy cutting the lead to 3-1.

Well, just like we all expected, the Royals offense responded to that solo shot with two of their own in the top of the second from Michael A. Taylor and Merrifield. This expanded the lead to 5-1 halfway through the second inning.

Just like he was in Kauffman a couple weeks back, Bobby Dalbec loves to hit Royals pitching. In the bottom of the second, the first baseman sent a ball onto Lansdowne Street behind the green monster.

The 5-2 Royals lead held on until the bottom of the fourth where Xander Bogaerts started it off with a ground rule double down the right field line. Hunter Renfroe was up next and he did not miss the 1-1 change up from Duffy. Sending it to dead center, 439 feet.

Duffy retired Vazquez next which ended his day going 3.1 IP 5 H 4 ER (all via home run) 1 BB 2 K and 62 pitches which is the most he has thrown since returning from the IL.

Kyle Zimmer came into the game allowing one run to come around to score to tie the game up thanks to a pair of seeing-eye singles.

Josh Staumont came on for the fifth and looked good, however that success only lasted so long because in the sixth, Renfroe for the second time today blasted a mammoth shot this time over the green monster. This gave the Red Sox their first lead of the day.

Carlos Hernandez followed Staumont in the 7th with a 1-2-3 inning thanks to the Royals third double play on defense of the night.

Hernandez stayed out there for the eighth, where he had to handle some traffic around him. Devers led the inning off with a walk. Then on a fantastic change up, struck out J.D. Martinez. Bogaerts followed that with a grounder down the left field line. Official book gave Rivera his first career error but it was a tough play with an in-between backhand. A heads up play was made by Nicky Lopez to see the ball bounce his way keeping Devers at second. With one out, Renfroe came up to bat and Hernandez was unphased by the right-fielder’s big night and struck him out. Unfortunately, Vazquez was up next and walked, loading the bases for the Royal killer, Dalbec. And with bases loaded, crowd on their feet and a full count, Hernandez threw a 100 mph heater past Dalbec ending the inning.