This Date In Royals History--1985 Edition: August 23
Yuck. The Royals blow a late-inning lead and lose to last-place Texas.
It was a disappointing night all around for the Royals, who blew a 3-1 lead in the late innings and lost to the lowly Texas Rangers, 4-3, on Friday night at Royals Stadium.
The Royals held that 3-1 lead when Texas came to bat in the eighth. Kansas City starter Mark Gubicza had held the Rangers to just two hits in seven innings. With one out, though, Bob Jones singled. Wayne Tolleson grounded into a force out. But Toby Harrah doubled to cut the Royals’ lead to 3-2. Dan Quisenberry came on in relief of Gubicza, but Pete O'Brien singled to tie the score.
Then, with two outs in the ninth, Oddibe McDowell snapped an 0-for-16 skid with a long home run to right-center field off Quisenberry. That put the Rangers on top 4-3, and the Royals could not come back.
Texas actually scored first in the game, picking up a single run in the third. With two outs, Harrah walked and O’Brien tripled.
The Royals tied the score in the fourth against Rangers starter Dave Stewart. George Brett led off with a double and scored on Hal McRae’s single. They took the lead in the sixth when Brett led off the inning with a home run. McRae followed with a double. One out later, Frank White doubled off reliever Dwayne Henry for a 3-1 lead.
But that was all the Royals could muster, although they had plenty of chances to add more runs. The Royals left 11 runners on base and went 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Kansas City also had two runners thrown out on the bases, and also missed a chance to retake the lead in the eighth. McRae was thrown out trying to take third on a single in the fourth. In the fifth, Buddy Biancalana doubled but was thrown out at third trying to stretch it into a triple. Third-base coach Mike Ferraro was ejected for arguing the call. And in the bottom of the eighth, White led off with a single and stole second. After a groundout moved him to third, pinch-hitter Jamie Quirk hit a fly ball to left. White tagged up but stopped a third of the way home and returned to third. Willie Wilson flied out and the inning was over.
The Royals dropped to 66-53 with the loss. They were in second place in the AL West, 2.5 games behind California as the Angels took advantage of three Detroit errors to capture a 7-6 win.
Box score and play-by-play:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA198508230.shtml
1985 baseball news: St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Joaquin Andujar became the first hurler of the season to pick up his 20th win. Andujar’s 6-2 victory over Atlanta gave him a 20-7 record and also put St. Louis in first place in the NL East by one game over the New York Mets. Andujar also won 20 in 1984, when he finished 20-14.
Today’s birthdays: Mike Boddicker (1957), Ed Hearn (1960), Allen McDill (1971), Ronald Bolaños (1996)