Royals almost come back to win, but almost isn’t enough in 6-5 loss
May 12, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Kansas City Royals pitcher Matt Strahm (25) reacts after giving up a solo home run to Chicago White Sox right fielder Derek Hill during the eight inning at Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images The Kansas City Royals built a 2-0 lead and came back to tie the game at 5-5, showing some fight. But in Major League Baseball, “almost” doesn’t cut it, and the Chicago White Sox where the victors in tonight’s contest.
The Royals struck first. Bobby Baseball smacked a solo home run to give the Royals a 1-0 lead. The Royals also struck second, in the same inning!
Salvador Perez knocked his own solo home run. At this point, let’s go to a few sentences I said in the pregame: Welp, Salvador Perez is hitting cleanup, dragging his . 233 OBP along with him.
Perez wasn’t in the lineup on Sunday, so there was maybe some hope that he’d be further down the lineup when he reappeared. The answer is: no. I’m sure that won’t negatively impact the game at all tonight, but we’ll quote these sentences and see if that’s correct truly or ironically.
The good news is that the sentence was correct (truly), at least here! And Salvy did get another hit later, so he was legitimately productive there in his return to the game. Maybe some more off days are in order, TBH.