KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Royals trailed by six runs after the top of the third inning and again after the top of the fifth, but they rallied to within two runs with three innings remaining. Unfortunately for the Royals, they couldn’t get over that hump.
Daniel Lynch’s rough start gave the Chicago White Sox too great of a head start and the Royals fell, 10-7, in the second game of their three-game set in front of an announced 18,800 at Kauffman Stadium on Saturday night.
The loss sets up a rubber match on Sunday to decide the winner of the three-game series as well as the season series between the teams.
Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez belted his 39th and 40th home runs of the season, a two-run blast in the third inning and a three-run smash in the fifth. He drove in five of the team’s first six runs and recorded his sixth multi-homer game of the season.
Carlos Santana ended a homer drought that had extended back to July 24, a stretch of 131 at-bats, with a solo blast of his own.
Lynch gave up six runs on five hits, including a pair of first-inning home runs, and three walks in just 2 2/3 innings. He left with the Royals down six runs.
The Royals cut the deficit in half by scoring three runs in the bottom of the third on a Cam Gallagher RBI single and Perez’s two-run homer.
However, the White Sox kept their motor running offensively against reliever Ervin Santana. They scored a pair in the fourth and another in the fifth to take a 9-3 lead.
Perez’s three-run blast with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, following two-out singles by Whit Merrifield and Nicky Lopez, made it a three-run game again.
Santana’s solo homer in the sixth, a 441-foot smash to right field, pulled the Royals within two, 9-7.
The White Sox added an insurance run in the eighth on Andrew Vaughn’s two-out groundball RBI single.
The three-game series concludes Sunday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. The pitching match-up features Royals right-hander Brady Singer (3-9, 4.87 ERA) against White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease (11-6, 3.82).
