This Date In Royals History--1985 Edition: June 11
The Royals lose their third straight one-run game, despite holding a 3-1 lead at one point.
The Royals blew a 3-1 lead and lost their third straight one-run game, dropping a 4-3 loss to the A’s on Tuesday night at the Oakland Coliseum.
The A’s scored first, picking up a run in the first inning against Royals starter Bud Black. Alfredo Griffin led off with a double, and scored on a Mike Davis groundout with one out.
Kansas City took the lead with two runs in the fourth. Lonnie Smith and Jorge Orta began the inning with singles off Oakland starter Don Sutton. Steve Balboni hit a fly ball to deep center, deep enough that Smith was able to tag up and score from second. Frank White and Pat Sheridan followed with singles, bringing Orta around to score for a 2-1 lead.
The Royals’ fifth inning also began with a pair of singles, this time from Onix Concepcion and Willie Wilson, with Concepcion reaching third. Wilson stole second, but Smith fouled out. Orta’s groundout scored one run, but Balboni flied out to left to end the inning, keeping the score 3-1.
Oakland responded in the bottom of the fifth with one run, thanks to two singles and a Donnie Hill groundout. The A’s then tied the score with a bit of help from the Royals in the seventh. Mickey Tettleton started the inning with a double. Hill attempted a sacrifice bunt, but Black threw the ball past first base and pinch-runner Rob Picciolo scored the tying run.
Black was still pitching when the A’s came to bat in the ninth. He got one out, but Picciolo singled and Hill walked. Reliever Mike LaCoss took over for Black and struck out Griffin, but Carney Lansford singled, scoring Picciolo to end the game.
“I don’t know what pitch I threw, but it was obviously not a good one, because he got a base hit on it. It was probably a fastball over the inside part of the plate–I think that’s what he hit. It was a good pitch for him and a bad pitch for me.”--LaCoss, quoted by the Associated Press, June 12, 1985
Kansas City fell to 28-27 with the loss. They were in third place in the AL West, two games behind Chicago, who moved into first with a win in Seattle while the California Angels lost to Texas. Still, manager Dick Howser praised his pitching staff.
“Last year, our offense wasn’t any good. And it’s the same thing this year. We haven’t had any big innings. I can’t complain about our pitching and I still think our pitching is going to be good enough to win it.”--Howser, quoted by the Associated Press, June 12, 1985
Box score and play-by-play:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK198506110.shtml
1985 baseball news: Von Hayes of the Philadelphia Phillies tied a major-league record with two home runs in the first inning, sparking the Phillies’ 26-7 thrashing of the New York Mets. Hayes had been mired in a two-for-33 slump, but led off the bottom of the first with his fourth home run of the year, off Mets starter Tom Gorman. By the time Hayes came to bat again in the inning, Gorman had been lifted for Calvin Schiraldi, but Hayes boosted Philly’s lead to 8-0 with a grand slam. The Phillies led 16-0 after the second inning and tacked on 10 more runs in the late innings. Philadelphia came into the game having scored 25 runs in the month of June.
1985 sports news: The Miami Hurricanes thumped the Texas Longhorns, 10-6, to win the College World Series in Omaha. Miami became the first team since 1972 to come out of the losers’ bracket and win two straight games against the winners’ bracket champion for the title. It was Miami’s second CWS title, with the first one coming in 1982. For Texas, it was the second straight year they lost in the championship game.
Today’s birthdays: Odalis Perez (1978), Bobby Keppel (1982), Josh Newman (1982)