Singer still lacking run support as Royals fall to Rays, mother nature

KANSAS CITY -- The Royals were rain-soaked, tired and ready to move on quickly from their 5-1 loss to the Rays on Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium.

Up against mother nature in the opener of the final series of this homestand, the Royals battled the rain and the Rays, losing to the latter with the game pushed to the wee hours of the morning thanks to the former.

Royals starter Brady Singer, who had allowed the game’s only run on a wild pitch in the second inning, was just about to begin the sixth inning when crew chief Adrian Johnson called for the tarp to be pulled out and told players to get off the field.

A large, dark cloud was encroaching on The K, thunder was booming and lightning could be seen in the distance.

About two minutes later, with the infield fully covered, that storm appeared with high winds and heavy rain, leading to a two-hour, 32-minute rain delay that ended up being longer than the actual game itself (two hours, 27 minutes).

“I didn’t feel like I had my best stuff,” Singer said. “Just had to grind through what I had. Slider got me into the fifth there, and going out for the sixth, the weather started coming down. Another Kansas City rainstorm.

“I think I was told lightning was kind of close there, and obviously they pulled it out at the right time. It started pouring.”

The game resumed at 11 p.m. CT, with the rain off-and-on the rest of the way until the final out came minutes after midnight. As a thank you to the fans who stayed throughout the delay and the rest of the game, Royals executives handed out vouchers to the few hundred scattered and soaked throughout the ballpark.

They wished they could have given them a better show for sticking around, as the Rays quickly pounced on the Royals’ bullpen, first with a run against reliever John Schreiber on a double that got through first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino’s legs.

Bobby Witt Jr.’s 13th homer of the year cut the Royals’ deficit in half in the bottom of the sixth. But the Rays kept the pressure on with two more runs in the seventh inning off Chris Stratton, who walked two and was the victim of a two-run Isaac Paredes double that skipped off the glove of third baseman CJ Alexander -- who had logged his first career hit a few hours earlier -- and down the left-field line.

“The walks hurt us,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “ ... Did a good job wiggling out of it in the eighth, but one run wasn’t going to be enough.”

Tuesday was really two games in one night, with Singer the story in the first half and the bullpen’s collapse in the second half after the delay, although the quiet offense was persistent the entire night.

“It was a close game the whole time, but rain delays happen,” left fielder MJ Melendez, who knocked three hits Tuesday, said. “We were sitting here for a while. Wish it had been the other way around and would have been able to get something done, something started after that rain delay. But that’s baseball. It’s part of it.”

Singer lowered his ERA to 3.05 across his 17 starts this season but was handed his fifth loss because of one sequence in the second inning and no run support. Singer has been given just two runs or fewer of support in 13 of his 16 starts, including each of the last seven -- a stretch in which he’s 0-3 and the Royals have scored a total of five runs in his 37 2/3 innings.

With two outs, Richie Palacios raced home from third base when Singer threw a fastball to the backstop against Taylor Walls, on pitch No. 8 of what would ultimately be a 10-pitch walk to the Rays’ No. 9 hitter. Singer said he “overthrew” the four-seamer that the wild pitch came on, throwing it across the zone to where catcher Salvador Perez couldn’t catch or block it.

Singer got out of the 28-pitch inning without further damage and settled down before the rain ended his outing an inning early.

“Just tried to make a four-seam there better than I needed to, and pulled it across the zone,” Singer said of the wild pitch. “Salvy was set up and away, and I pulled all the way across the zone. Obviously tough for him to get a glove on it.”