Santana homers twice, but 'pen tested in loss

CLEVELAND -- Moments after Carlos Santana haunted his former team with a game-tying homer in the top of the ninth inning, the Indians grabbed the momentum right back with the final say on Thursday night.

With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Cesar Hernandez doubled off reliever Greg Holland, and with two outs, Holland intentionally walked José Ramírez to face Franmil Reyes.

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Reyes made Holland pay, with a no-doubt, three-run walk-off home run in the Royals’ 7-4 loss Thursday night at Progressive Field in the four-game series opener. The Royals have now lost 13 of 16 games and are a season-high 15 games under .500 as they opened the final series before the All-Star break.

“We were in a good place to put that game away,” manager Mike Matheny said. “There’s been a couple now that didn’t play out how we wanted it to.”

It was the second consecutive night the Royals bullpen gave up a late lead and pitched its way to a loss. Scott Barlow allowed two runs in the seventh inning Wednesday against the Reds, and on Thursday, he came in for the eighth with a two-run lead. Typically the Royals’ most reliable reliever through the first half of this season, Barlow walked Reyes and Bobby Bradley -- who homered off starter Danny Duffy in the fourth inning and was on base four times -- to set up Roberto Pérez’s monster three-run homer to straightaway center field.

The way Barlow has pitched all year -- entering Wednesday’s game with a 1.99 ERA, four saves and coming up big time after time -- has made the past two games baffling for those watching. But the Royals have also relied on Barlow and Holland heavily this year as the rotation struggles to pitch deep into games and other high-leverage relievers go through ups and downs.

“We’re always trying to balance whether they’re still in a good place as hard as we work them,” Matheny said. “Both of them have had a little bit of rest going into yesterday. But overall, they have had a lot of work. No question. We’ve used them in those situations all season long. And the innings they’re pitching are amplified because they’re high-stress innings. That’s a definite part of the equation.”

Barlow has been by far the Royals' most consistent reliever. Entering Thursday, he was tied for fourth among American League relievers with 40 appearances and eighth with 41 2/3 innings pitched. Most of those have been in high leverage. On Thursday, Pérez’s homer came on a slider -- a pitch that opponents have whiffed on 43.2 percent of the time this year, according to Statcast. But Barlow left it up in the zone, and Pérez didn’t miss.

“Scott’s slider usually doesn’t get hit like that anyhow,” Matheny said. “Maybe it goes back to [the] question about being used a lot and him just going off fumes right now and limping in, maybe, to the All-Star break. We’re going to have to take a look at it and make sure the medical team and the sports performance get their hands on it, see if something’s there. Because Scott usually doesn’t get hit like that.”

Santana wasn’t ready for the game to be over, crushing his second homer of the night, 402 feet to center field, for his 11th career multi-homer game and first two hits at Progressive Field as a member of the Royals.

But when Holland took over the bottom of the ninth, the Royals had a choice of pitching to Ramírez or Reyes and chose Reyes based on Ramírez’s numbers against Kansas City: The recently named All-Star was slugging .499 against the Royals in his career -- and had already done it once before against the Royals this year when he hit two homers in a win on April 7.

“You got to pick your poison,” Matheny said. “We’ve had one guy do it to us too many times. You just hate to make a mistake while having first base open. … It’s a tough out. They both are.

“They made us pay today.”

Santana and Hunter Dozier hit a pair of homers in the fourth inning off Indians starter Zach Plesac to give the Royals the lead. The burst of offense helped Duffy through five innings of one-run ball as the veteran lefty continues his buildup after coming off the injured list at the end of June. He threw 77 pitches, struck out five and walked three before handing things over to Josh Staumont and the Royals bullpen to close out the game.

“It just didn’t fall our way today,” Duffy said. “But I’d put our guys up against anybody. It probably didn’t help that I wasted so many pitches. Could have pitched an extra frame. The bullpen’s been used a ton and we’ve got a nasty bullpen, man. It just didn’t fall our way tonight. But we all have the utmost confidence in each other as a whole. We’re going to keep grinding. And we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. We’re going to come out of this little funk.”