Royals walk off on ... bunt -- by backup catcher!

KANSAS CITY -- During a homestand highlighted by Royals home runs, it took a perfectly executed bunt play to give Kansas City its first series win in more than a month.

Backup catcher Freddy Fermin became the man of the day and the recipient of an impromptu Gatorade shower when he laid down a safety squeeze walk-off bunt that scored Nick Pratto to give the Royals a 4-3 victory over the White Sox on Thursday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. With runners at first and third and one out, manager Matt Quatraro gave the sign for the bunt play and Fermin got the ball down. Chicago closer Reynaldo López came down hard from the mound, but he couldn’t secure the ball as Pratto crossed the plate.

“My mind thought, ‘I have to do it’,” Fermin said.

And so, he did.

Quatraro said he thought the bunt might be Kansas City’s best opportunity to avoid extra innings against the hard-throwing López.

“[I] just was thinking how difficult it is to get the ball off the ground against López,” Quatraro said. “He’s really tough. You try to put Freddy in the best spot and give us the best chance to win.”

The White Sox were down 3-1 in the eighth, but Luis Robert Jr. delivered a game-tying two-run double against Aroldis Chapman to set up a ninth inning that put an exclamation point on Kansas City’s first series win since April 7-9 in San Francisco.

The precise execution ended with Fermin, but it started with Pratto, who drew a leadoff walk against López on a 3-2 pitch that again showed that Pratto’s forte is plate discipline. Matt Duffy then came through with a one-out single to right, setting the stage for the bunt that gave the Royals three out of four in the series.

“The 'Duff' special,” Quatraro said of Duffy’s hit. “He is known for those hits down the right-field line.”

The talk coming into the game was mostly about Kansas City’s recent power surge. When Michael Massey went deep in the second inning on a blast off the right-field foul pole, it gave the Royals a streak of 10 consecutive games with a homer.

In the end, however, Kansas City needed small ball rather than the long ball.

“It just shows the versatility of this team,” Massey said. “We can hit the ball out of the park. And Freddy laid down an unbelievable bunt right there to win the game. Hard to defend.”

The Royals went 1-6 and 0-6 on their first two homestands this year. But they rallied to finish 5-5 on their third homestand, with four wins in their past five games.

The positives for Kansas City in the series finale against the White Sox included a solid start from Brady Singer, who had lasted just 6 2/3 innings in his past two starts combined.

Singer allowed just one run over six innings, while striking out four and allowing just five hits and two walks on 80 pitches.

“I felt like the command was pretty good today,” Singer said. “ All of my pitches were working well and I was able to incorporate the changeup to lefties. Using all three pitches was really helpful.”

Quatraro felt six innings was the right spot to lift Singer in his bounceback outing.

“He located and made some big pitches when he really had to,” Quatraro said.

The Royals will now try to keep the momentum going as they head out on a nine-game road trip. Suffice to say, they are feeling much better about things than they did after the previous two homestands.

“Every team is going to have its ups and downs,” Quatraro said. “The downs at the beginning of the year were prolonged. I feel really good for our guys to get some wins. The crowds this week have been tremendous. I know they feed off that.”