KANSAS CITY -- Daniel Lynch cruised through four innings on Saturday afternoon against the Orioles and worked his way out of trouble in the fifth, but he ran into his kryptonite again in the sixth.

With one out and two on base, Lynch served up a middle-middle slider to Tyler Nevin, who hammered it to straightaway center field. The 425-foot, three-run blast erased the Royals’ lead, sprung Lynch from the game and led to Kansas City’s 6-4 loss at Kauffman Stadium, which snapped its three-game winning streak.

Lynch faced a similar situation in Monday’s start against the Blue Jays, when he allowed two home runs in the sixth inning, putting the game out of reach for the Royals.

“Really, really frustrating,” Lynch said. “To throw like I did the first five innings, feel like I was doing everything right, and then, back-to-back starts, have that backbreaking homer, it’s really frustrating. I felt like I should have given us a better chance to win. You try to take the positives, because there were a lot, but mostly just frustrating.”

The way his outing ended perhaps made the positives all the more upsetting for the young starter, because Lynch looked at his best to begin Saturday’s game. And when the Royals jumped out to an early lead, the lefty looked primed to pick up the win.

Lynch had some of the better fastball command he’s had this season early on, especially when elevating it. In total, the O’s whiffed 30% of the time on his heater. Mixing that in with his slider -- which registered five whiffs on 15 swings (33%) -- kept Baltimore off balance, and Lynch threw more sinkers (five) than he has in a game all season.

At first, it looked like the movement on his four-seam was just registering as a sinker on Statcast, but Lynch made a concentrated effort to pick his spots with the two-seamer.

“When I can get it, I think it’s a pretty decent pitch,” Lynch said. "I thought maybe to try to mix it in a little bit more. … I planned on throwing a few more just dictated by the hitters, but I thought it was moving pretty well, and I thought I was getting good results. So I just stuck with it.”

“Probably one of the better fastballs we’ve seen, and once he got into advantage counts, he was able to elevate and get the swing and miss,” manager Mike Matheny added. “I thought the slider was good. He actually had good sink on his two-seamer today, too. He had down and up with his fastball. It’s just one inning spiraled. Unfortunate, because he had stuff to go a little deeper.”

Entering the fifth inning at 55 pitches, Lynch got an easy groundout to start but then walked Jorge Mateo and allowed a single to No. 9 hitter Richie Martin. Cedric Mullins lined a ball into right field to score a run, but a heads-up play from shortstop Nicky Lopez and the rest of the Royals' infield caught Martin in a rundown to save another run and get the second out.

That’s when Lynch went back to the elevated fastball to strike out Trey Mancini, limiting the damage.

Lynch’s pitch count was still low entering the sixth, and the combination of how good his stuff looked and how worn down the Royals' bullpen is right now gave Matheny confidence to have Lynch face the middle of the O’s order for the third time -- something Lynch must learn how to do as the Royals build toward the future.

“Historically, you’re going to have better at-bats as you go deeper,” Matheny said. “That’s the challenge of being a starter, carrying games deep, is that they’re going to have more opportunities to see repertoires. That’s the benefit of having a four-pitch mix. You should be very unpredictable.”

Two hard-hit singles later, Lynch was facing Nevin with one out and quickly fell behind 2-0 with two outside sinkers. Nevin swung through a slider, so Lynch went back to the pitch -- but missed his spot, badly.

“My slider was slipping out of my hand a lot today,” Lynch said. “And just wasn’t able to make a good pitch.”

Nevin's three-run blast extended the Orioles' lead to one they wouldn’t relinquish, and Lynch ended his day after 5 1/3 innings with four runs, seven strikeouts and one walk to his name. The Royals' offense made it a two-run game in the eighth but couldn't finish the comeback, as they left seven on base.

Nevin’s homer proved the difference, and Lynch suffered his fifth straight loss on a bad pitch in a bad situation.

“We just locked it in, might have come out a little flat,” Nevin said. “Picked up the intensity in that inning, for sure. I think we were taking good swings.”