The Kansas City Royals lost their fifth game in a row on Friday night, falling 2-1 to the San Francisco Giants, who had three hits from Heliot Ramos.
With this loss, Kansas City fell four games behind Baltimore for the first AL wild card spot and is now only one game ahead of Minnesota for the second wild card.
“You’ve got to make your own breaks,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “We had every opportunity to hit a ball in the gap or a line drive through the middle. We’ve got to keep putting ourselves in the opportunities to get guys on base and force the action. Hopefully we break through.”
Mason Black (1-4) pitched very well for San Francisco, going a career-high 5 2/3 innings without allowing any runs, limiting the Royals to just four hits.
“He pitched great,” San Francisco manager Bob Melvin said. “He seems like the last few times he’s been a little bit more comfortable and confident with what he’s doing out there.”
Camilo Doval gave up a sacrifice fly to Garrett Hampson but managed to strike out Tommy Pham with runners on second and third, earning his 23rd save in 28 chances.
“That was a little stressful, but he got out of it,” Melvin said.
Hampson almost hit a double down the left-field line that could have won the game with one out in the ninth, but the ball was called foul. Quatraro asked to challenge the call, but it was denied.
“I was surprised it was called foul,” Quatraro said. “I didn’t have a great angle from where I was sitting, but they called it foul and it’s not reviewable.”
Quatraro believed the ball was behind third-base umpire John Bacon, but he was informed that the replay umpire in New York said otherwise.
“I’ve argued that one a million times,” Melvin said. “You can’t review it unless it’s behind him.”
Kansas City went 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base, including three in scoring position in the first two innings.
“You want to score every time you get those opportunities,” Quatraro said. “It just didn’t go our way.”
“We hit the ball hard but didn’t have anything to show for it,” Adam Frazier said. “We just need a timely hit or two. The pitchers kept us in the game.”
