Witt makes 20-20 history, Vinnie HRs twice as Royals roll past Tigers

DETROIT -- The Royals are playing some pretty good baseball right now for many reasons. Pitching, hitting and defense are firing on all cylinders, making the box score look every bit as good as the record.

Sometimes, though, the mental game is just as important. And what better weapon to have than Bobby Witt Jr.?

“He’s the face of baseball moving forward, or at least part of the face along with a lot of other good players, and I don’t say that lightly,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said shortly after Witt and the Royals beat the Tigers, 7-1, on Thursday night at Comerica Park. “... he can hit, he gets on base, he’s got power, he’s got speed. He’s a generational player for a reason. All those qualities equal a problem moving forward for anybody that plays the Royals.”

Witt, who has already achieved plenty in his short career, added another line to his resume with his 20th home run, which made him the first player in AL/NL history to collect 20 homers and 20 steals in each of his first three seasons.

Some feats have been repeated tenfold during MLB’s 121-year history, so there’s a certain distinction that comes with achieving a first. That a 24-year-old with three seasons under his belt is doing something no one in MLB has ever done says plenty about who Witt is as a player, but how he responds to the spotlight, manager Matt Quatraro said, might be even more impressive.

“Everybody sees what he does on the field,” Quatraro added. “To me, he's just as special, if not more so, behind the scenes because of his humility. That kind of humility can be tough to come by sometimes, especially on the big stage like this, but he makes it look easy.”

Even when Witt isn’t hitting -- which hasn’t happened often lately -- he finds ways to impact the game.

Take the first inning in Detroit, for example. Maikel Garcia reached on a single to lead off the game and then danced off the bag against rookie Keider Montero, who had a conundrum: Guard against Garcia, who is challenging the Rays’ José Caballero for most steals in the American League, or lose focus pitching to Witt, who is fresh off a scorching hot July during which he slashed .489/.520/.833 with 22 RBIs.

Witt stood patiently in the box and Garcia continued to dance off the bag for the first two pitches, both balls, before Garcia stole second and then took an enormous secondary lead. Montero eventually walked Witt after a nine-pitch at-bat, but by the time Montero had conceded to Witt, Garcia had also stolen third. If Detroit’s No. 7 prospect was rattled by the sequence, Vinnie Pasquantino didn’t give him time to recover, driving the first pitch he saw over the wall in right field to give Kansas City a 3-0 lead.

Montero locked down afterward, retiring 18 of the next 20 Royals he saw until Michael Massey stroked a one-out double in the seventh, but the damage was done. The Royals had thrown him off his game, however briefly, and it set the tone.

Witt came back up in the eighth and clubbed back-to-back homers with Pasquantino to extend Kansas City’s lead to 6-1. In addition to making history with his knock, Witt’s long ball also extended his hit streak to a team-best 14 games. He added an RBI double in the ninth to mark his 12th game this season with multiple extra-base hits, tied for third most in MLB behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge (14) and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani (13) and tied with the Yankees’ Juan Soto (12) and the Red Sox’s Rafael Devers (12).

Pasquantino’s 14th homer earned the 26-year-old his first career multi-homer game, which he admitted was “cool” to achieve but didn’t feel nearly as good as following his teammate’s lead.

“To be honest, I'm more excited that I didn't roll over a first pitch out there,” Pasquantino said with a chuckle. “Bobby hits a homer, [and] I get so excited to go back to back with him, sometimes, I just swing.”

Witt, to his credit, has remained humble throughout this wild ride. The closest he’ll come to bragging is a phrase like the one he uttered Thursday.

“We’re going to do some great things.”

We. The Royals, who are now 12 games above .500 (61-49), have won four in a row and have moved into second place in the AL Central, six games behind the Guardians.