He suffocated the Reds on two hits over 5 2/3 innings as the Royals clubbed the Reds, 7-1.
The Royals apparently were not impressed that the Reds were 26-13 in the first game of a series, the best in MLB.
After hitting 10 home runs during a three-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals and hitting 27 home runs in their previous 12 games, Cincinnati’s offense consisted of four doubles, two by Tyler Stephenson on his 28th birthday.
And the battle of the ‘Superstar Shortstops,’ Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr., was also one-sided.
While De La Cruz was 0 for 4 with a strikeout and a line-drive double play, Witt brutalized the Reds with three hits — a home run, a double, a single, two runs scored and an RBI.
The Reds were still in winning range in the ninth inning, trailing 3-1. The Royals scored a run and had a runner on second with two outs when it was Witt’s turn to bat.
In what seemed like a wise move, manager David Bell ordered Witt intentionally walked. After all, the next batter was Vinnie Pacquatino, 1 for his last 22 when the game began.
Pacquatino took personal affront and drove a hanging Fernando Cruz cutter 399 feet into the right field seats, a three-run stake in the Reds’ heart for a 7-1 lead.
Thus ended the Reds’ four-game winning streak and their chance to reach .500. Instead they fell two below at 60-62.
Lorenzen gave up hits to the first and last batters he faced and not much else in winning his first game for the Royals after he was acquired from Texas at the trade deadline.
He began the game, grunting on every pitch, with a 5-6 record and a 3.79 earned run average. He hadn’t won a game since July 5 and that was against Tampa Bay when he still worked for the Texas Rangers.
Jonathan India opened the game with a double and took third on a De La Cruz grounder. But Tyler Stephenson struck out and TJ Friedl grounded out.
Spencer Steer opened the second with a walk but nothing came of it. India drew a one-out walk in the third but De La Cruz lined into a double play.
The Reds scored their only run in the sixth when India coaxed a one-out, four-pitch walk. Stephenson doubled down the left-field line to score India with Cincinnati’s second hit of the game.
And that ended Lorenzen’s night. Four Royals relief pitchers followed him and the Reds produced no runs and two hits. The last three Reds stuck out.
Kansas City leads MLB with a .302 batting average with runners in scoring position and were 5 for 13 in that situation Friday while the Reds were 0 for 10.
Cincinnati starter Nick Martinez buzzed perfectly through the first 10 Kansas City hitters, extending a streak of 27 2/3 innings of giving up just one run. That ended with one in the fourth when Witt reversed a 0-1 92 mph fastball 430 feet into the left field stands, his 25th home run.
Witt was in the middle of a two-run sixth when he led off with a double into the right-field corner and scored on a single by Pasquatino, who later scored on Salvatore Perez’s infield single to make it 3-0.
Cruz pitched a scoreless eighth with two strikeouts. One out came when MJ Melendez doubled into the right-field corner. But he tried to stretch it into a triple and De La Cruz cut him down with a masterful throw.
Bell, though, permitted Cruz to go back out for the ninth, only the second time this season Cruz has pitched more than one inning.
It was disastrous.
Adam Frazier singled and Freddy Fermin doubled to make it 4-1. Then came the fateful intentional walk to Witt and Pasquatino’s three-run homer.
The Royals, 12 games over .500 (67-55) in the American League Central, outhit the Reds, 13-4.
Even though Lorenzen spent seven years in a Reds’ uniform, he turned out to be un-Cincinnatian when he said, “I tried Skyline Chili once. It won’t happen again.”
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