CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Royals inch closer to the Guardians for first place in the AL Central after Kansas City’s 4-3 win in the series finale. Kansas City now sits four games behind Cleveland in the division.
While the Royals still have yet to win a series at Progressive Field since 2020, they still broke a stretch of four consecutive series wins for the Guardians at home against Kansas City.
“They’re always a great team,” Tanner Bibee said. “They’ve always been a team that’s similar to us. They’re going to try to grind you out for all nine innings. I have a ton of respect for those guys over there. We have them 10 more times, so it will be a fun time the rest of the way.”
Jose Ramirez broke a 1-1 tie in the third inning by launching a ball 422 feet to right field. The sixth pitch of the at-bat was a fastball down the middle and resulted in Ramirez’s 17th homer of the year.
The solo home run was Ramirez’s 805th career RBI. He passes Manny Ramirez for sole possession of eighth place in the club’s all-time RBI list. Ken Keltner holds the seventh spot on the list with 850 RBI.
“He’s unbelievable,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “He never ceases to amaze me. It’s just fun to watch him, and he just gets better and better as the count and game goes on.”
Ramirez recorded his 806th career RBI in the next inning on an infield single to second base which forced Royals starter Brady Singer out of the game.
The Royals bullpen pitched 5.1 scoreless and hitless innings of baseball following Singer’s exit. The Guardians left nine men on base and were 1-8 with runners in scoring position.
In his second career start against the Royals, Tanner Bibee pitched five innings, gave up two earned runs on six hits, and struck out seven batters.
“I felt good,” Bibee said. “I think overall it was a pretty good outing. I think the walk at the end is kind of unacceptable. Other than that, I feel like I threw five-plus of some pretty good baseball.”
With the loss, the Guardians are now 11-2 in games pitched by Bibee this season.
“I thought Tanner came out and he was attacking,” Vogt said. “I thought he made pitches all day and wasn’t really getting hit too hard. I thought overall Tanner threw the ball well they just did a good job of battling him and getting his pitch count up.”
Guardians catcher Bo Naylor left the game after the sixth inning when MJ Melendez scored on a groundball to first base to tie the game. Melendez was initially called out but the call was overturned after Kansas City challenged the play at the plate.
“Bo’s fine,” Vogt said. “He got a little zinger in his shoulder. We removed him for a pinch hitter, so it was not because of injury. He should be fine.”
Kansas City took the lead in the eighth inning on a two-out RBI single by Kyle Isbel. The run snapped a 13.1-inning scoreless streak for Hunter Gaddis. It also snapped the bullpen's 26 consecutive scoreless inning streak, the longest by Cleveland’s bullpen since 2017 (38.2 innings).
“They’ve done everything we’ve asked of them and more,” Vogt said about the bullpen. “They continue to just be incredible. When they give up runs, we’re all going to wonder what happened because that’s the bar they’ve set for themselves. They found a way to scrap across runs and we didn’t and that was the difference in the game.”
The Guardians (40-21) hit the road next for their first meeting with the Marlins (21-41) this season. Miami has lost their last four home games. Logan Allen (6-3, 5.83 ERA) is expected to start on Friday night in the three-game series opener.
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