SEATTLE The Royals looked poised for a series sweep after having won three consecutive road games and with young workhorse pitcher Brad Keller on the mound coming off his best run of starts this season.
Unfortunately, Keller didnt make it through five innings for the first time all season, and the Royals fell well short of a series sweep.
After routing the Seattle Mariners by nine runs on Tuesday night, the Royals received similar treatment in an 8-2 loss in the series finale in front of an announced 16,228 at T-Mobile Park on Wednesday afternoon.
The Royals (25-49) finished their six-game road trip with a 3-3 record and collected their first road series win of the season with two wins in Seattle.
Royals starting shortstop Adalberto Mondesi did not play. He came out of Tuesdays game with groin tightness, and he did not do any work on the field prior to Wednesdays game. Nicky Lopez started at shortstop. Cheslor Cuthbert, Jorge Bonifacio and Lopez had two hits apiece.
Keller faced all nine batters in the Mariners lineup in the opening inning. He allowed two home runs, five hits a walk and struck out two. He threw 35 pitches just to get through the first.
Hed given up just four home runs the entire season (93 innings) and watched Mariners hitters take him out of the park twice in the same inning.
Keller gave up four runs within the first four batters of the first inning. Mallex Smith doubled, J.P. Crawford drew a walk, and Domingo Santana jumped all over the first pitch he saw from Keller and sent it over the left-center field wall for a three-run home run.
The next batter, Daniel Vogelbach, blasted a 1-2 pitch from Keller down the right field foul line and inside the pole for a solo home run. After a fly out and two more singles, Keller struck out the last two batters to end the inning.
Keller struck out the side in the second, all on swinging third strikes, after having started at the top of the lineup for the second time in two innings.
After the Royals got a run back in the third inning on an Alex Gordon RBI groundout, Keller ran into more struggles in the fourth. He gave up a leadoff single to Dylan Moore and then his back-foot slider to Smith actually hit Smiths back foot.
Then J.P. Crawfords RBI single drove in a run, Santanas RBI single drove in another and Vogelbach hit a drive to left that Gordon had to get on his horse to track down. Crawford tagged and scored on the play to give the Mariners three runs in the inning with just one out recorded.
Keller got out of the inning, but his outing ended after four innings with the Mariners up 7-1.
Keller had come of a stretch of five consecutive starts in which he posted a 2.83 ERA, averaged seven innings per start and struck out 22 and walked nine in 35 innings.
Meanwhile the Royals offense which roared on Tuesday night got muffled by Mariners starting pitcher Marco Gonzales (8-6). Gonzales held the Royals to two runs on six hits and one walk in 6 2/3 innings.
