This Date In Royals History--1984
Lots of late-inning runs lift the Royals to a win over Detroit.
The Royals scored seven runs during the sixth and seventh innings for a 9-6 comeback win over Detroit on Saturday afternoon in Detroit.
Kansas City trailed 4-2 when they came to bat in the sixth, with just two singles since scoring two runs in the first against Tigers starter Glenn Abbott. Jorge Orta started the sixth with a single but was forced out at second on a Dane Iorg grounder. A wild pitch moved Iorg to second, and he scored on Darryl Motley’s single. Doug Bair replaced Abbott, but with two outs, Don Slaught drew a walk. Onix Concepcion singled, scoring Motley to tie the game at 4-4. After Willie Wilson walked to load the bases, a brief rain delay of 28 minutes interrupted the proceedings. When play resumed, Pat Sheridan singled, driving in two runs and putting the Royals in front. Sheridan had three hits on the day and credited hitting coach Lee May with helping him break out of a small slump.
“We had been playing in a lot of small ballparks and I guess I just got into a bad habit. Lee told me to just go where the ball was pitched. Sometimes your thinking is messed up. Today, I was just trying to see the ball and hit it where it was pitched. If I had gotten an inside pitch to pull, I still could have adjusted to it.”--Sheridan, quoted by the Associated Press, August 5, 1984
Sid Monge replaced Bair and got the final out of the inning, but Iorg doubled with one out in the seventh, followed by a Motley walk and a Frank White single to load the bases. Aurelio Lopez took over for Monge, but Slaught greeted him with a two-run double. Concepcion followed with an RBI single and the Royals were on top, 9-4.
Kansas City’s first two runs of the day came in the first four batters. Wilson led off with a single and stopped at third on a Sheridan double. George Brett grounded out, with Wilson scoring. Orta’s single gave the Royals a 2-0 lead.
Royals starter Mark Gubicza worked out of trouble most of the afternoon. Detroit tied the score in the third as Tom Brookens started the inning with a popup that first baseman Iorg dropped. With one out, Alan Trammell walked and Kirk Gibson tripled, knotting the score at 2-2.
After walking the bases loaded in the fourth and getting out of that with no runs scoring, Gubicza was unable to complete the fifth. Gibson led off with a single, then stole second. With one out, Ruppert Jones homered to give the Tigers a 4-2 lead. Joe Beckwith entered in relief of Gubicza and got the final two outs.
Beckwith was still in the game in the seventh, when Gibson led off with a triple and scored on a Jones single. But Beckwith retired eight of the final nine batters he faced, finishing off the win for Kansas City.
The victory gave the Royals a 52-56 mark. They were in fourth place in the AL West, four games behind California. The Angels beat Minnesota to move back into the division lead by a half-game, the third straight day the teams had traded places atop the division.
Box score and play-by-play: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET198408040.shtml
1984 baseball news: The San Francisco Giants, mired in last place in the NL West, fired manager Frank Robinson following their 9-2 win over the Braves in Atlanta. The team appointed Danny Ozark, who had led the Phillies to three straight division titles in the 1970s, as interim manager.
1984 sports news: Beginning his attempt to match Jesse Owens’ four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, U.S. track star Carl Lewis picked up his first gold of the 1984 Games, winning the 100-meter sprint with a time of 9.99 seconds.
Today’s birthdays: Jason Adam (1991), Domingo Tapia (1991), Brady Singer (1996)
Wow! In the list of about a million things I have forgotten, one was that the Giants fired Frank Robinson.