KC Royals offense comes alive in ninth, Perez delivers walk-off sac fly in 2-1 win

Kansas City Royals star Salvador Perez had a chance to deliver a win with one swing, and he did just that to give his club a walk-off win over the AL Central-leading Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday night.

The Guardians rolled the dice by intentionally walking Royals rookie phenom Bobby Witt Jr. to load the bases and pitch to Perez with one out in a one-run game in the ninth inning.

Perez lofted a 93 mph slider from Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase high into center field and Nicky Lopez tagged up and scampered home from third base as the Royals claimed a 2-1 win in front of an announced 13,394 in the finale of a three-game series at Kauffman Stadium.

“I just try to do my job, I’m not going to worry about that,” Perez said of the Guardians walking Witt to get to him. “I don’t want to lose my focus. I want to concentrate. If I get angry or more excited, maybe I swing at some balls, maybe hit a ground ball because I’m super-excited. But no, I was just patient, swing at a good pitch and bring Nicky to home plate.”

The win marked the fourth walk-off of the season for the Royals (56-82), who avoided a series sweep. Three of the Royals’ four walk-off wins this season have come against the Guardians.

The win also gave the Royals just their third win this season when they trailed after eight innings. They entered the night 2-74 when trailing after eight.

“A great way to head into an off day, and a very good win for our club,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said.

Perez went 2 for 4, while Witt. (1 for 3, two walks), Nick Pratto (1 for 2, two walks), Michael Massey (1 for 4, double) and MJ Melendez (1 for 5) all recorded hits.

Royals starting pitcher Zack Greinke allowed one run on six hits and one walk in six innings. He struck out two, and three of his last four starts have been quality starts.

Heading into the ninth inning against Clase, the Royals had stranded nine men on base and were held to just five hits by rookie starter Cody Morris and a processional line of Guardians relievers.

Clase, who features a cutter with an average velocity of 99.6 mph and a nasty slider that has averaged 91.9 mph, hadn’t blown a save opportunity since May 9.

The Royals snapped a string of 25 consecutive converted save chances, the longest active run in the majors and the longest streak by a Cleveland pitcher since Jose Mesa converted 38 consecutive saves in 1995.

In the ninth, the Royals batters Kyle Isbel and Drew Waters drew back-to-back walks against Clase to start the frame. Clase had walked just seven batters in 57 2/3 innings entering the night.

By the time Waters came to the plate, the chant of “four more balls,” which started with a small cluster of fans in the stands, had spread among the crowd. Clase walked Waters on four pitches.

Then Lopez put down a bunt with the intention of moving both the tying and go-ahead runs into scoring position. However, Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez fielded the bunt and got the force out at second base to leave runners on the corners with one out.

Melendez, who had gone 0 for 4 in the game, swatted an RBI single through the middle of the infield defense and into center field. Isbel scored and Lopez went from first to third.

“I feel like the other day when he came in, we had some pretty good at-bats against him,” Melendez said. “Obviously, we got the win that day. But today, a different story. Once we got the first man on base, it kind of goes from there, passing along the baton.”

After Melendez’s single, the Guardians walked Witt and rested the game on Perez’s shoulders.

“I didn’t know what to think of it,” Witt said. “I just knew whenever Sal is going up to the plate, we’re going to go home a winner. Everyone had that confidence in Sal, so we knew what was going to happen happened.”

The sacrifice fly was Perez’s eighth career walk-off RBI, his first since July 6, 2021, against the Cincinnati Reds.

“Salvy is born for this, born for those situations,” Matheny said. “That’s exactly what we expected that he would do.”

While Matheny surely took solace in the fact he didn’t have to make the decision Guardians manager Terry Franco faced, he understood Francona’s conundrum.

“He’s looking to get a double play right there,” Matheny said. “I get it. You’re talking up to 102 (mph) on a cut. That’s a ball that’s rolled over to shortstop a lot. That’s a much easier turn on Salvy than it would be on Bobby, so I get it. Fortunately, it worked out for us.”

Greinke’s return to the rotation

Greinke made his first start since he came out of his outing against the Tampa Bay Rays due to forearm tightness after just four innings on August 21.

Greinke did not do a minor-league rehab assignment, and he rejoined the starting rotation just one day after he became eligible for reinstatement from the IL.

The Guardians scored in the fourth after a leadoff double by Oscar Gonzalez, a groundout that advanced Gonzalez from second to third and a bloop single by Owen Miller that dropped into center field in front of the hard-charging outfielder Waters with the infield playing in.

That stood as the game’s only run until the bottom of the ninth.

Greinke said he went into the outing expecting to throw between 75 and 90 pitches. He made it to 85, and said he started to tire quickly in his final inning. He also did his share of sprinting to first base to cover on grounders hit to first baseman Nick Pratto. Greinke covered first at least five times.

“I view them as like league-average swinging, how aggressive they are,” Greinke said of his approach against the Guardians. “Just you can’t strike them out. So just try to make good pitches, make it hard for them to square up balls and get hard hits. Don’t try to strike them out. That was kind of my thought, because my stuff probably isn’t nasty enough to strike a lot of them out very often.”