KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Bobby Witt Jr. hit his first home run of the season, but it wasn’t nearly enough as the Royals lost 8-1 to the Orioles on Saturday at Kauffman Stadium.
Witt’s home run came in the sixth inning off Baltimore starter Tomoyuki Sugano, who left a curve ball up, and Witt sent it into the left field seats. Witt’s blast cut the Orioles’ lead to 6-1, but they tacked on two more in the seventh.
The Royals (3-5) managed just five hits against the Orioles (4-5) and no Royal had more than one hit. Royals starter Michael Wacha (0-2) pitched 5 2/3 innings, giving up four runs on six hits and five strikeouts. The bullpen did the Royals no favors from there as Sam Long and Chris Stratton gave up two runs each over the next 2 1/3 innings before Daniel Lynch IV pitched a scoreless ninth.
Sugano (1-1) struck out four and yielded just one walk in 5 1/3 innings for the Orioles. He worked out of a jam in the fifth where he gave up back-to-back hits to start the inning but stranded both runners at first and second. The Orioles then followed with a four-run sixth.
UP NEXT
Orioles LHP Cade Povich (0-0, 6.23 ERA) will face Royals LHP Chris Bubic (1-0, 0.00 ERA) at 1:10 p.m. Sunday in the series finale.
