KANSAS CITY -- On Friday night at Kauffman Stadium, it was Tigers starter Joey Wentz walking off the field to a rousing cheer from Tigers and Royals fans alike after he made a stellar start in his hometown, just a few miles away from where he dominated high school batters at Shawnee Mission East (Kan.) High School.

In his third career start, Wentz shut down the Royals much like he used to do to his high school opponents, holding them to two hits over 6 2/3 scoreless innings in Kansas City's 10-2 loss to Detroit.

Kansas City recorded six total hits and wasn’t able to score until the eighth, when Bobby Witt Jr. hit an infield chopper to plate Nate Eaton from third base. Eaton brought in the second run of the night with two outs in the ninth.

“[Wentz] did a nice job of reading what we were looking for and changing his game plan based off that,” said Vinnie Pasquantino, who doubled and walked in his first game off the injured list. “I think that’s where, if you asked anybody in here, we struggled tonight, because we couldn’t make that readjustment. We were ready for a game plan, he changed his game plan, and we can do a better job of adjusting to him.”

The Royals are 0-61 this season when trailing by three runs at any point of a game.

That deficit was dug early by Royals starter Daniel Lynch, who allowed a career-high 10 hits and six runs in 3 2/3 innings, his shortest start since July 16 in Toronto. Lynch has allowed at least four earned runs in each of his last three starts after allowing three earned runs or fewer in eight of his previous nine starts.

“Pretty frustrating,” Lynch said. “I felt like we had a good approach going in, and I was getting behind some guys. Giving up multi-run homers is just not going to work.”

The Tigers entered Friday with the lowest exit velocity on fastballs in the American League (89.1 mph), per Statcast, and third-worst in baseball, just a tick ahead of the Reds (88.7 mph) and Nationals (89 mph).

Detroit was also slugging just .375 on fastballs, good for second-worst in baseball behind the Angels’ .371 mark.

On Friday, the Tigers swung 17 times at Lynch’s fastball. Four were whiffs, five were fouls and eight were balls in play -- with an average exit velocity of 100.8 mph.

Two of Lynch’s fastballs were mistake pitches down the middle and accounted for four of his six runs: The 444-foot solo homer Eric Haase hit out to begin the second inning, and the 445-foot, three-run blast Jeimer Candelario crushed later in the second.

Both came on 2-0 counts.

“He gets hit hard when he gets too much of the plate and when he gets into those favorable counts,” manager Mike Matheny said. “He wasn’t keeping them off speed. … He wasn’t getting in counts where he could be creative. He had to challenge, and he got big parts of the plate. That ends up being extra-base hits.”

Lynch’s slider didn’t have its typical effectiveness, generating 10 swings but just two whiffs on the usual swing-and-miss pitch. But his game plan was more changeup-focused to right-handers, so he didn’t throw the breaking ball as much.

“It came into play a little bit against the lefties, but we were throwing a lot of changeups to righties so it didn’t come much into play against the righties,” Lynch said. “I wouldn’t say it was the best.”

With 112 innings pitched this year, Lynch has now thrown more than ever before in his career. There’s fatigue that comes with that, along with mistakes.

“I think more than anything else is just him understanding his body right now, being in the middle of September or close to it, and he’s just fighting through some things that he’s never felt before, being in his first full Major League season and the demands that come with it,” Matheny said. “It’s going to come down to staying focused and controlling counts to where you don’t have to hit big parts of the plate.”

As he’s done before, Lynch deflected the fatigue argument as a reason for his struggles. 

“I think it’s probably tough for everyone,” Lynch said. “I’m no different than anybody else. It’s not an excuse. Just got to keep moving forward. I got, I don’t know how many more starts, but I’m going to keep moving forward and get better.”