Wednesday marked the 10th time the Royals have been swept this season.
Matt Quatraro didn't have to search very hard for an explanation after the Kansas City Royals left Dodger Stadium on the wrong end of a three-game sweep.
Kansas City had opportunities Wednesday night. It even had the lead twice. What it couldn't do was turn enough of those moments into runs, and that left the Royals on the wrong side of another close game in a series where the margin was consistently small.
"We had some opportunities there and Rojas cashed in the first one," Quatraro said postgame, via MLB.com. "Just didn't put it together in the middle innings."
Josh Rojas gave Kansas City its first lead in the second inning, driving in Tyler Tolbert after Tolbert had walked and stolen second. The Royals went ahead again in the third when Salvador Perez's softly hit single brought home Jac Caglianone.
Neither lead lasted very long.
Daniel Lynch IV had looked like a different pitcher when the game started. He struck out three consecutive Dodgers in the first, including Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, and worked through the top of the lineup with the kind of efficiency Kansas City has been looking for from him.
Then Mookie Betts got to a 1-0 fastball in the second inning and sent it over the wall.
Ohtani’s home run in the third ended up being the swing point. Lynch had worked ahead of Miguel Rojas with two strikes before Rojas poked a double into the gap, and then Ohtani didn’t wait around. He jumped on the first pitch he saw and sent a two-run shot out to give Los Angeles the lead.
Quatraro circled back to that sequence afterward, especially the pitch to Ohtani.
“That’s what he’s here to do,” Quatraro said of Lynch’s role. “Provide some length.”
Lynch was out after 2 1/3 innings, but Kansas City still managed to piece together the kind of length it needed from the bullpen. Jose Cuas and Mason Black covered the next 4 2/3 innings and allowed just one run between them, keeping the game within reach and, for stretches, feeling like one swing might flip it.
That swing never came.
The Royals did put themselves in position in the seventh when Bobby Witt Jr. and Jac Caglianone both singled to put runners on first and third, but Landon Knack came out of the bullpen and shut it down before the inning could break open. Kansas City finished 2-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base, a number that told most of the story on its own.
Against a lineup like the Dodgers’, that margin is usually thin enough already. When the few mistakes get punished the way they did Wednesday, it gets even harder to recover.
There was at least a new look out of the bullpen. Craig Kimbrel made his Royals debut in the eighth and worked a clean inning on just 10 pitches. He did issue a walk, but a double play off the bat of Betts quickly erased it.
“It was good,” Quatraro said. “I think it was a good first outing for him.”
The night also came with a more immediate concern. Perez was removed in the sixth inning with right elbow aggravation, and he said afterward the discomfort got worse when he tried to make a throw to second base on a stolen-base attempt. Luke Maile finished the game behind the plate.
Kansas City leaves Los Angeles on a four-game skid and with their 10th sweep of the season in the books. The games were close enough throughout the series that the final result almost feels like the part that stings the most.
The Royals will now take an off day on Thursday before opening a series against the Angels, with Seth Lugo lined up for Friday's opener.
