CHICAGO _ Mike Moustakas dropped his bat to the dirt and shrugged his shoulders, his feet still planted in the dirt of the batter's box. He pulled his helmet off his head and looked out toward the outfield at Guaranteed Rate Park.
It was the top of the fifth inning on Friday, and Moustakas had just ripped a baseball toward first base with runners at the corners and two outs. Launched a little higher, or perhaps one degree to the left or right, and the Royals would have tied the score in a slugfest contested at a glacial pace. Instead the baseball found the glove of Chicago first baseman Jose Abreu, who absorbed the force of the flying orb and collapsed to the ground.
In a 7-6 loss to the Chicago White Sox, Moustakas was left standing at home plate, an incredulous look on his face. By the end, the Royals could share in the disbelief after another loss against the rebuilding White Sox.
In the final moments, Whit Merrifield was thrown out at home plate by Chicago's Avail Garcia with one out in the ninth inning as the game ended on a wild double play. After Merrifield was cut down at home, Lorenzo Cain attempted to take second after hitting a single, where he was tagged out to end the game.
The Royals would challenge. The review would prove the call correct.
Fighting for survival in the American League wild-card race, the Royals frittered away a 6-2 lead, had two men thrown out at home plate and dropped to 1-3 against the White Sox (62-91) in the month of September. Hoping to piece together an improbable sprint to the finish in the final 10 days, the Royals fell 4{ games behind the Minnesota Twins, who won again, with nine games to play.
Once upon a time, starter Jason Hammel was the late reinforcement for the starting rotation when tragedy struck late in the offseason. As the curtain looms in his first season with the Royals, his numbers have tilted back toward ghastly. On Friday, he was drilled for seven runs in 31/3 innings, his season ERA spiking to 5.32. In five starts this month, the veteran right-hander has permitted 24 runs in 25 innings.
The decisive sequence came in a five-run fourth inning. Hammel could not execute pitches in the strike zone, and the result was a quick demise and wasted offensive performance against White Sox starter Reynaldo Lopez.
The Royals had built a 6-2 lead in the top of the third when errors from Chicago second baseman Yoan Moncada and shortstop Tim Anderson lit the fuse in a six-run explosion. The inning had begun with a solo homer from Alcides Escobar, his sixth of the year. But then Alex Gordon reached on Moncada's gaffe, Merrifield singled to right, and Anderson botched a line drive, dropping the baseball and throwing wildly to first base.
With the bases loaded and nobody out, the Royals would score once on an RBI single from Melky Cabrera and twice on another single from Eric Hosmer. The offense would settle for six runs after a double play and a two-out wild pitch.
Hammel could not preserve the four-run lead. In a fourth inning that appeared to combust in seconds, he surrendered an RBI double and a pair of two-run blasts to Matt Davidson and Moncada.
Davidson, a rookie, hammered a slider to left-center for his 26th homer, another glaring reminder of the gaudy power totals all around baseball. Moncada, another first-year player, caught up to a fastball and crushed a two-run shot over the wall in center field.
The lead was gone. The Royals could not recover.
