Kris Bubic, Kansas City Royals get roughed up in 13-5 series-opening loss to Padres

Kansas City Royals left-hander Kris Bubic gave up the first six runs in Friday night’s game. The substantial hole he dug wasn’t insurmountable. The Royals nearly climbed their way out, but the hole kept getting deeper.

The Royals dropped the series opener against the San Diego Padres, 13-5, in front of an announced 16,479 at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals rallied from a six-run deficit in the third inning to pull within one, but they were unable to complete the comeback.

“Kris just didn’t have a good feel today, really with anything,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “His curveball got a little better his last inning. But his misses were more in the zone but just not near where he was trying to go location-wise. He just never got a feel for anything, just kind of had us on our heels.”

Bubic (2-9) allowed six runs on nine hits, including a pair of home runs, and one walk in four innings. All six of the runs he allowed came with two outs. The six earned runs were a season high.

The Royals (51-76) still made it a one-run game by the end of the fourth inning.

“It was great to see the guys fight right back in it,” Matheny said. “At that point, we’ve got to figure out how to take it. I felt like it was right there for us at that point, unfortunately that’s a lot of work we’ve got to put on the pen. Fortunately, we had a day off yesterday to use a couple guys. We used more than what we wanted to.”

Royals relievers allowed five runs, including a four-run seventh inning as the Padres (69-58) broke the game open. That does not include a pair of ninth-inning runs allowed by infielder/outfielder Hunter Dozier, who made his pitching debut in the ninth to prevent the Royals from having to use another reliever.

Royals rookie first baseman Nick Pratto went 2 for 4 with a double and his fourth home run in the majors this season, while catcher Salvador Perez went 2 for 3 with a walk and two RBIs.

Rookie left fielder MJ Melendez had a hit, a walk, drove in a run (sacrifice fly) and threw out a runner at the plate, while rookie infielder Bobby Witt Jr. had two hits (2 for 5) and shortstop Nicky Lopez also had two hits (2 for 4) and scored twice.

Bubic’s rough start

Bubic gave up three first-inning runs after he retired the first two batters of the game on four pitches. He then walked the third batter, Padres star Manny Machado, on four pitches and threw a total of 22 pitches just to finish that frame.

Bubic got two strikes on the next batter, Brandon Drury, then gave up a single. Josh Bell followed with an RBI single. Then former Royals farmhand Wil Myers smacked an 0-1 changeup for a two-run double to right-center.

In the second inning, Bubic allowed a two-out RBI single to Jurickson Profar.

Then in the third, Myers and Jake Cronenworth hit back-to-back home runs with two outs to push the Padres advantage to 6-0.

“Just middle mistakes that were being hit,” Bubic said. “A lot of that happened with two outs. It can’t happen in the first inning where I get two quick outs and then a four-pitch walk and then kind of one thing after another after that. Just leaving too many pitches over the plate, and they were getting hit.”

Bubic, who has lost his last three starts, said his changeup was “flat” and lacked its typical depth. He got just one swing-and-miss on his changeup in the outing, and the balls that were put in play had an average exit velocity of 98.1 mph.

“You’ve just got to work hard to locate it a little bit better,” Bubic said. “I think if you know the pitch isn’t coming out of your hand the way you want it to, you’ve got to really execute it. You’ve got to executive it almost ten times better than what you think you should be able to. Those are adjustments you sometimes make in games and sometimes, for whatever reason, aren’t able to on certain nights.”

Royals rally and Pratto gets results

The Royals’ first run also came with two outs, thanks to a Perez RBI single in the bottom of the third inning. That served as the first drop in the bucket, and the floodgates opened the following inning against Padres starter Joe Musgrove.

Pratto’s fourth homer of the season started a four-run fourth inning for the Royals as they pulled within a run.

After Michael A. Taylor reached base on a throwing error, Pratto’s two-run homer to right field made the score 6-3. Then singles by Drew Waters and Lopez put runners on the corners, and Melendez’s sacrifice fly allowed Waters to score from third. Witt lined a single up the middle to bring Perez back to the plate with two outs.

Perez slapped an RBI single into left field and Lopez came in to make the score 6-5.

“We were back in that ballgame,” Pratto said of the feeling after the rally. “Even with a couple runs we were always back in that. Things can change in the matter of a couple swings, a couple at-bats, a couple pitches. In the future, we’ve just gotta keep putting tough at-bats together just like we did that inning. I thought we did a really good job of attacking Musgrove, and he made some good pitches. But at the same time, we stayed stubborn and put barrel on the ball.”

Pratto snapped out of an 0-for-21 slump with a double off the left-field wall in the second inning. He drove a 3-2 fastball that was off the outside corner.

“He was making good pitches around the zone,” Pratto said. “I got deep into the count and kind of had an idea of his offerings at that point. He left it elevated enough for me to get it in the air. It was off the plate, I think, but just me protecting the zone at that point.”

Pratto’s fourth-inning home run came on a 1-1 changeup. It traveled an estimated 388 feet.

Pratto credited the pregame work he’s been doing with the coaching staff to have more consistent at-bats.

“Just going back to conducting my at-bats like I have in the past, not getting too ahead of myself,” Pratto said of the focus of his work. “Not trying to do too much or kind of be too fine, just getting back to hunting what I want and sticking to it.”

Bad luck for the bullpen

Ha-Seong Kim’s RBI single in the sixth inning off of Brad Keller gave the Padres a two-run cushion, and it was poised to balloon into a much bigger inning after a walk and three consecutive singles, including one bouncer that looked like a potential double-play ball but took a funny hop and went over Lopez at shortstop.

“You start talking about that many ground balls that make it through, at some point that’s just some bad luck,” Matheny said of Keller. “But he’s making some pretty good pitches. He’s going to have to continue to just kind of fight through this.”

Keller turned it over to right-hander Jose Cuas with one out and the bases loaded, but Cuas retired the only two batters he faced and stranded the three runners.

In the seventh against Royals left-hander Amir Garrett, the Padres tacked on four runs — the first runs allowed by Garrett since before the MLB All-Star break.

The inning included a replay review of a safe call at first base when Pratto appeared to use some deft footwork to complete the play despite the runner kicking him in the foot. Replay upheld the out call and caused an overwhelming volume of boos from the crowd.

Dozier gave up a two-run homer to Kim in the ninth.