Savly heroics, bullpen dominance earn Royals walk-off series win
With just a single run being scored between both teams, the game was uneventful on the offensive side of the ball. However, fans got their money's worth quickly in the 10th inning when Salvador Perez drove in MJ Melendez to score the game-winning run.
Deadline approaches for Royals stadium measure to make November ballot
Here's a look at how the Royals won their third straight series:
Bullpen game shutout
The Royals' bullpen, tasked to fill in for missing starters Michael Lorenzen, Cole Ragans and Kris Bubic, combined to throw a ten-inning shutout. Kansas City sent nine total pitchers to the mound during the game, none allowed more than two hits.
Perhaps the most impactful bullpen arm seen today was that of Jonathan Bowlan. He tossed a clean two innings with three punchouts and a walk. John Shreiber tallied three K's as well in one inning, and Carlos Estevez threw a clean inning while showing off his reflexes on a line-drive comebacker, which he snagged easily.
While the shutout is impressive from Kansas City's bullpen, the Royals will need to make a move for pitching staff help before Thursday's trade deadline if they want to stay in contention. At this time, it seems that Cole Ragans and Michael Lorenzen could return sometime in August, but All-Star starter Kris Bubic won't pitch again this season.
Royals win with three hits
Kansas City Royals fans have been no strangers to frustrating offensive performances from their team this season. Today, however, was a rare occurrence where the offense struggled heavily and the Royals still got out with a win.
It's hard to win games while racking up just three hits as a team, but Atlanta's offense struggled all the same with just five hits. The Royals made one of those hits count, though, when Salvador Perez came up to bat in the bottom of the tenth. The only other Royals to get on base via a base hit were Maikel Garcia and Tyler Tolbert.
MLB trade deadline: Eugenio Suárez, Mitch Keller, Merrill Kelly among prized players who could move
Coming up
After the series win today, the Royals will travel north of the border to face the Toronto Blue Jays, who are currently tied with the Detroit Tigers for the winningest record in the American League.
It's unknown at this time who will take the mound for the Blue Jays, but right-hander Michael Wacha (4-9, 3.53 ERA) is scheduled to start on Friday, August 1 at at 6:07 p.m. Wacha will look to get deep into the game to provide some relief for the taxed bullpen, but nothing is certain against a potent Toronto offense in their ballpark.
The Royals are now 54-55, and just three-and-a-half games back from an AL Wild Card spot. They trail the Tampa Bay Rays, 54-54, and the Texas Rangers, 56-52.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vogue
3 minutes ago
- Vogue
Serena Williams Opens Up About Being on a GLP-1
Greatest-athlete-of-all-time Serena Williams and I have just started talking over Zoom when everything comes to an abrupt halt. 'Are you in a car right now and don't have a seatbelt on?' Williams asks with a tone only a mother would use. Okay, yes, I don't have a seatbelt on while my Uber speeds up the West Side Highway. My cheeks flush as I click in, ashamed. 'I couldn't help myself,' the mother of two says. Now that I'm strapped in, she's ready to talk. The recent public discourse around Williams's body—online commenters noticing a change in her physique and demanding to know how, exactly, it came about—isn't anything new. 'I've heard negative comments, along with a tremendous amount of positive comments, about my body my entire life,' says the 23-time Grand Slam winner, who announced her retirement on the cover of Vogue in September 2022. 'For lack of a better way to say it, I don't really care what people are saying about my body anymore. But what is important to me is transparency.' That calling has led her to this very moment: Williams is ready to share that she's on the GLP-1 drug Zepbound, a type of medication typically prescribed for diabetes and now also used for weight management. She accessed the drug through Ro and is now partnering with the telehealth company to talk about her experience. Williams' husband, Alexis Ohanian, is an investor in the company and serves on its board. The athlete isn't the only person who has revealed they are on one of the many versions of semaglutide—Oprah, Kelly Clarkson, Charles Barkley, and more have also gone on the record about using the drug. 'There's a scene in my HBO documentary where you see my coach telling me, 'You have to lose weight,'' she shares. 'But it was so hard after I had [my first daughter] Olympia. I was literally on the court every day, doing nothing else. I had been the ultimate super-athlete, always in competition and being super-healthy my entire life, but I just could never get back to where I needed to be, no matter what I did.'
CBS News
3 minutes ago
- CBS News
Jayson Tatum says his Achilles rehab has been "tedious" but sees better days ahead
Jayson Tatum is just over three months into his recovery from the ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered during the NBA playoffs. It hasn't been an easy process for the Celtics star, but Tatum said he sees better days ahead in his first public comments on his injury. While Tatum has been spotted in the wild rehabbing and working out, along with a few community appearances, he's kept away from reporters and hadn't spoken about the injury or his rehab since he ruptured his right Achilles against the New York Knicks on May 12. He broke his silence Wednesday in a clip shared on the NBA's social media accounts, and discussed the struggles he went through early in the process. Tatum underwent surgery in New York the day after he suffered the injury. The quick turnaround let him get a jumpstart on his rehab, but it didn't make the undertaking any easier. "Rehab is... It's tedious, man," Tatum said in the video. "It's six days a week. It's starting to get a little bit better. I'm out of the boot now. Better days ahead, but just trying to take it one day at a time. "You got to be resilient. That first six weeks of this was probably the toughest six weeks of any point in my life," added Tatum. "Just had to accept it and realize it happened and now I got to do everything in my power to get back to who I was and get back to playing." Tatum was named to his fourth straight All-NBA First Team for his efforts throughout the 2024-25 season, and is determined to return to that level of play when he takes the court again for the Boston Celtics. The Celtics have not announced a timeline for Tatum's recovery, though most players who suffer a ruptured Achilles miss a year or more of action. Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and team president Rich Gotham have both declined to put any sort of date or even a general timeframe for a Tatum return this offseason. But Tatum is clearly attacking his rehab full steam and seems determined to return during the 2025-26 season. In the days after the injury, Tatum's father, Justin, told ESPN he expects his son to be back for the Celtics in 8-9 months, which would the Boston star back in action around February or March.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
WNBA MVP race: Has Napheesa Collier's injury affected her frontrunner status? Could A'ja Wilson, Alyssa Thomas swoop in?
League MVP awards criteria are a nuanced cocktail with an ever-changing recipe. No one approaches it quite the same as another, and the scales can swing night by night with more intel. Which is why a late-season injury to 2025 WNBA MVP frontrunner Napheesa Collier is so interesting in the context of this year's race. Consistency matters to many, and missing any significant stretch of time hinders one's candidacy. It's especially notable since a slew of contenders are making increasingly strong cases in Collier's ongoing absence. Collier, a 6-foot-1 forward and odds-on MVP betting favorite, entered the season as the top contender following a standout year in 2024. She finished second to A'ja Wilson, a unanimous winner whose season snapped league records. That set Collier up for success from the jump, and she lived up to expectations with another strong statistical season as the fulcrum for league-leading Minnesota (28-6) on both ends. She leads the league in scoring (career-best 23.5 ppg) and ranks top-10 in average steals (1.8, third), blocks (1.6, fourth) and rebounds (7.5). She's shooting 53.7% overall (11th), 36.8% from 3 and 90.8% at the free throw line (fourth). Those rankings drop a smidge in per-40-minute stats, a preferred stat for many to compare players' numbers. The bulkiest claim is her status as the best player on the best team. The Lynx (28-6) are running away with the standings at 6.5 games ahead of the New York Liberty and Atlanta Dream. But she missed her eighth game on Tuesday night in the Minnesota Lynx's 85-75 loss to New York at Barclays Center. Collier (sprained ankle) hasn't played since Aug. 2. To win MVP would set a precedent. No MVP in league history missed more than 15.6% of the regular season. Jonquel Jones won the 2021 honor despite missing five of the Connecticut Sun's 32 games while competing at EuroBasket. At eight games, Collier has already missed 18.2% of the full season schedule. She's played in 26 of 34 games. A ninth absence would be 20% of the season. The Lynx upgraded her availability to doubtful earlier in the week. Head coach Cheryl Reeve said they expect her back before the regular season ends on Sept. 11. There are no league-mandated qualifications for MVP. The NBA instituted a games-played threshold of 65 games — 79.3% of the regular season's 82-game schedule — for its awards ballots. Its implementation was meant to curtail load management for star players, an issue the WNBA hasn't significantly faced yet with a shorter schedule. Minnesota has kept winning in Collier's absence, another potential knock to her candidacy if one believes the MVP should go to a player whose presence is so significant that an absence would derail a contender. Minnesota is 4-1 without Collier this month, including two wins against reigning champion New York. They are 6-2 in games without her this season. As players around the league are showing, there's a final quarter to state their case for awards. It was easy to leave Wilson out of the conversation when the Las Vegas Aces were barely a postseason squad two weeks ago. Winners historically play on a team that finishes in the top two in the standings. But the Aces have charged into a tie for fourth, shifting the MVP bar of team success more in Wilson's favor. She became the first in league history to score at least 30 points with 20 rebounds and isn't far off from her historic 2024 stat line. She ranks second behind Collier in scoring (22.6 ppg), second in rebounding (9.9) and first in blocks (2.1) for a fourth consecutive season. And the three-time MVP overtook Collier in win shares, a category the Lynx star led handily before her injury. Wilson leads the league (6.6 to Collier's 6.4) after scoring 32 points with 12 rebounds to notch an eighth consecutive win for Las Vegas on Tuesday. Alyssa Thomas continues to cut her own lane in the history books. She has five of the league's 10 triple-doubles this season and nearly half of the 53 in league history (20). Her stat line is similar to that of 2023 when she won the most first-place MVP votes, but fell seven points short of winner Breanna Stewart. Her game style doesn't fit nicely into the historic MVP mold, and she's had to advocate to be seen as one. The knock is always the lack of scoring compared to other candidates, but she is once again averaging nearly a triple-double on the season with 16.2 points, 8.6 rebounds and 9.1 assists. Unlike the other top candidates, Thomas is performing in a brand-new environment on a revamped roster in Phoenix. After an 11-year career in Connecticut, Thomas leads the Mercury in rebounds (8.6), field goal efficiency (53.9), and for the first time in her career, leads the league in assists (9.1). Though the guards always fall down the consideration list (no guard has won since Diana Taurasi in 2009), a few will receive down-ballot votes, which could impact a close race. With the 'ultimate green light' under first-year head coach Karl Smesko, Atlanta Dream guard Allisha Gray is having the best year of her professional career. The Dream are tied with the Liberty for the No. 2 seed as of Wednesday morning, with the most wins (22) since 2018 (23-11). Gray is third in win shares (5.9). Despite an injury-induced fall for the Indiana Fever, calls are coming for Kelsey Mitchell. Mitchell played in all 35 games through Wednesday morning with averages of 20.4 points (fourth), 3.4 assists and 1.6 turnovers. She's carrying the offensive load for Indiana and stepping up to fill voids left by three injured point guards, including Caitlin Clark. Mitchell finished tied for 10th in MVP voting last year. Sabrina Ionescu's availability bar is also nearly full as the most dependable starter of the New York Liberty's big three. She's averaging a career-best 19.1 points per game (fifth), but not as efficiently as years prior. Her 5.4 assists per game rank seventh, and she finished sixth in voting a year ago. It's difficult to parse out a league MVP from the loaded superstar crew in New York. Stewart finished third last year, but has also missed all of August with a knee injury.
