Down to last out, Melendez rescues Royals with pinch 3-run HR

DETROIT -- Outside of wins and losses, perhaps the biggest difference between this season’s Royals and the 2023 squad is a feeling of hope. Kansas City might lose, but it won’t roll over. And more often than not, the club will keep grinding until it finds a way to win.

Such was the case on Sunday afternoon at Comerica Park, when pinch-hitter MJ Melendez stepped to the plate in the top of the ninth with two outs, two on and the Royals trailing by two. His three-run homer lifted the Royals to a 3-2 series-clinching win over the Tigers.

Melendez entered the series finale at Comerica Park with 12 home runs and a .192 season average. He might have been struggling at the plate, but he knew redemption was just a swing away. He believed in that as much as his teammates believed in him.

“We have a tremendous ‘care’ factor,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “They don't give up. Guys know that any one second can dictate an outcome of the game. It can be the first pitch, it can be the last pitch; you just don't know when you're going to have your moment to affect the outcome of the game.

“If you don't take any pitches off, you’ve got a chance to impact the game, and that's what these guys do. They just pass that down the line.”

And so it wasn’t much of a surprise when Melendez didn’t drag out the drama any more than he needed to, swatting his first career pinch-hit homer on the first pitch he saw from Tigers reliever Shelby Miller.

“We just have a lot of fight,” Melendez said. “We're a winning team, and that's just the bottom line. We're a great team. We feel like we can go out there and beat anybody, and the game is not over until the last out is made.

“I feel like this team truly defines that. You see time and time again, [we] come back in the ninth inning to win games, to tie games. Even if sometimes we’re down, we at least fight back.”

Hunter Harvey, who was charged with a blown save on Saturday night, returned to the rubber in the ninth and sat down Detroit in order to secure the series win and send the Royals home on a high note after wrapping a 6-1 road trip.

Harvey had scuffled since landing with the Royals in a July 13 trade with Washington, carrying an 11.25 ERA across his past nine outings. And yet, he had a surge of confidence warming up in the bullpen even before he watched Melendez’s hit sail into the stands in right field.

“Coming over here, they felt like I could help them win, and finally I feel like I've actually contributed a little bit,” said Harvey, who earned his first save of the season. “... The boys battled back, scored runs late, so to be able to get in there and you know, finally do my job, it feels good.”

Confidence. Grit. Never say never. Use any label you want, but teams that not only want to win every game but expect to are dangerous, and that spirit is alive and well in Kansas City right now.

The Royals mustered just five hits, four of them singles, during the first eight innings while the Tigers built a 2-0 lead with a run-scoring single off starter Michael Wacha in the second and a sacrifice fly in the fifth.

Wacha hurled his fourth quality start in his last six outings, but was saddled with a no-decision when the offense -- which had produced 21 runs in the first three games of this set -- fell silent behind him.

While Kansas City was quiet on the surface, there was plenty brewing below. Hunter Renfroe opened the ninth inning with a single. Pinch-hitter Michael Massey popped out, but Freddy Fermin’s one-out single put two on for the Royals.

Pinch-hitter Adam Frazier lined out to center after narrowly missing a 3-run homer to bring up Melendez, who drove Miller’s splitter into the stands.

In doing so, Melendez joined Denny Hocking (2005) as the lone Royals since at least 1974 to enter the game as a pinch-hitter with his team trailing with two outs in the ninth inning, and have a lead-taking RBI in a game Kansas City won.

“This is definitely some of the most fun I've had playing ball,” Harvey said. “I've never been on a winning team. So to be here, and be in this environment, it's fun.”