When Joakim Soria is called in the ninth inning with a three run lead and he gets the first two outs, Royals fans can expect a win. However, that didn’t happen in Wednesday’s 10-7, 12 inning loss to the White Sox.
Soria got two quick outs and then gave up four runs, which is something never did before. Yet, the Royals still battled back. Down 7-6, they managed to tie the game and force extra innings (third straight extra inning game).
Billy Butler singled, Jarrod Dyson ran for him and stole second then scored easily on Kila Ka’aihue’s double. In the bottom of the 11th, Alex Gordon was on third with one out, but Jeff Francoeur struck out on a 3-2 pitch and Escobar grounded out against lefty Chris Sale.
The Sox scored three runs in the 12th against Royals reliever Sean O’Sullivan. Carlos Quentin led off with a double and Alexei Ramirez got a single with bunt along the third-base line. After a groundout and an intentional walk to load the bases, Brent Morel line a two run single to right field. A third run scored on Pierre’s sacrifice fly.
What hurt even more about this game was that the Royals jumped out to a 5-0 lead and were cruising along until the late innings and still had one out to go and a three run cushion before seeing the game slip away.