Royals drop opener but wait out 1st playoff berth since 2015

ATLANTA -- Nearly every Royal was sitting at his locker in the visiting clubhouse on Friday night, disappointed about the 3-0 loss to the Braves at Truist Park but focused on a game up north, the Orioles-Twins opener in Minnesota.

The Royals weren’t able to get the win they needed Friday to clinch a postseason berth, so they had to wait around for the next best thing to happen: A Twins loss.

Minnesota's loss gave Kansas City its first postseason berth since 2015.

“All of it,” manager Matt Quatraro said of the focus turning to the Twins’ game. “We’re not too proud. You got to get in somehow, right? We probably helped some other people along the way. We wanted to take care of it ourselves, but we got beat tonight. There was nothing you can say about that. And now that’s all we can do, is watch and hope it goes our way."

The Royals got beat by an absolutely dominant Max Fried, who threw 8 2/3 scoreless innings and allowed just three hits to keep the Braves’ postseason hopes alive.

Fried retired the first 10 batters he faced, with the first baserunner being Bobby Witt Jr. on an infield single.

The Royals didn’t reach third base until the ninth inning Friday, when Witt walked and Michael Massey hit his second double of the day. That pushed Fried out of the game to a standing ovation, but Braves closer Raisel Iglesias finished the game by getting Salvador Perez to fly out to left on the first pitch.

“He’s tough,” Massey said after two doubles off Fried. “He’s got a sinker, four-seam, four different pitches. Sweeper and curveball. He located well all night. Worked both sides of the plate. Just had good stuff. Changed his timing with his leg kick. He was tough to get to tonight."

Brady Singer did everything he could to keep the Royals in the game despite some laborious innings and runners peppering the bases. He went six innings and allowed two runs, good enough for a quality start, but he was handed his 13th loss of the season because of Sean Murphy’s two-run homer in the fourth inning on an 0-2 hanging slider.

“If I get that ball a little bit farther off the plate, I like my chances more,” Singer said. “But left it in the middle of the zone. Obviously a pretty good swing.”

Singer worked around trouble from the start on Friday, walking two as part of a 27-pitch first inning. But he pitched his way out of it -- and did so quite a bit. In the third, he worked around Massey’s error on a sharp grounder. In the sixth, Singer worked around runners on second and third after a walk and double to the left-field wall by striking out Murphy -- who had blasted a two-run shot on an 0-2 hanging slider in his previous at-bat in the fourth inning -- and Gio Urshela on sweepers that dove out of the zone at the last second.

“That was what I was trying to do on the second at-bat [to Murphy], try to get that off the plate more,” Singer said. “The sweeper, even the first inning, that was a pitch I could throw for a strike. Had the right movement.”

The Braves scored another insurance run in the eighth when Perez threw a ball into the outfield as Marcell Ozuna stole third base, allowing the designated hitter to jog home.