Season series won, but finale a sign of Royals' youth

CHICAGO -- After an offensive explosion of 24 runs across two games earlier this week, the Royals wrapped up their final trip to Chicago this year by scoring three runs in the final two games.

The Royals went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left 11 on base, while their pitching couldn’t contain the White Sox in Thursday afternoon’s 7-1 loss at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Despite dropping the final two games of this series, the Royals still won the season series against their American League Central opponent, going 10-9 for the second consecutive year. That’s a stark difference from the 1-9 record the Royals had against the White Sox in 2020.

“I remember at the end of the ‘20 season commenting on how we just never played well against them,” manager Mike Matheny said. “That wasn’t something we necessarily put on the board to check off, playing them better. We need to play everybody better. But you know when you earn the respect of your opposition, and I don’t think we did that first year. But we’ve played better against them recently.

“We need to, in order to get to where we want. We have to play the entire division better.”

Some of the lackluster offense the past two games has to do with a young lineup finding its footing and going through the individual ups and downs that come with rookie seasons. Some of it has to do with the Royals running into two steady veteran pitchers in Lance Lynn on Wednesday night and Johnny Cueto on Thursday.

“I think just the importance of winning your decisions at the plate,” second baseman Michael Massey said after his first career three-hit game. “Especially when you get those veteran guys -- if you chase out of the zone, they’re going to take advantage of that. They can see that right away. Just really making sure you’re sharp with your decisions and staying ahead in the count.”

Massey, who broke out of a 2-for-15 slump this week against the team he grew up rooting for in his hometown, elaborated more on the mindset that the Royals’ hitting coaches are trying to instill in these young hitters.

“Cueto lives on the edges,” Massey said. “If you swing at a changeup or just a ball off the plate, now it’s 0-1 instead of 1-0, and he can keep extending out there or throw a cutter in. If you lay off that, now you get yourself to a 1-0, 2-0, 3-1 count off of him, knowing that that’s what he's going to do. He’s going to nibble, not come over the heart of the plate until he has to.

“I think just trying to get those guys into a bad count is something that’s key to hitting them and something that’s key for us to take away moving forward.”

On Thursday, the 36-year-old Cueto pitched successfully around any pressure the Royals mustered. He limited the damage to a run in the third after Drew Waters scored on MJ Melendez’s RBI force out, getting both Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez to fly out.

The Royals’ lead didn’t last long. Daniel Mengden, making a spot start, allowed three runs in the bottom of the frame and got an early hook after 2 2/3 innings.

“We knew we could stretch him if we needed to, but we also knew we had some guys who could eat some innings for us,” Matheny said. “At that point, see if they can keep us in the game. When they put on pressure again, we needed to stop it.”

The Royals’ biggest missed opportunity came in the fifth, when they had runners on second and third with one out and their two most dangerous hitters in Witt and Perez due up.

Witt did what he needed to, hitting a ball with a 90 mph exit velocity up the middle -- but White Sox second baseman Romy Gonzalez was behind second base for the lineout. Perez lined a ball that seemed destined for the shallow left-field grass -- until third baseman Leury Garcia was there to catch it.

“[Cueto] is going to throw the kitchen sink at you,” Matheny said. “When you have him on the ropes, you’ve got to make some marks.”

And when the Royals didn’t, the White Sox took advantage, scoring two off Brad Keller in the bottom of the sixth and two more against Anthony Misiewicz in the eighth.