When Alcides Escobar didn't keep the glove down on Yolmer Sanchez's chopper to short with a runner on first and nobody on in the sixth, it was the Royals' first error in 16 games and 153 innings.
One pitch later, it all fell apart. Jason Adam came out of the bullpen, grooved a fastball, and Jose Abreu smoked a three-run homer to immediately change the storyline of the game from "they sucked in the clutch" to "spread it on."
Adam had problems with first pitches. His night ended one pitch after a mound visit, when he piped another fastball to Nicky Delmonico, and Delmonico got every bit of it for the second three-run blast of the inning.
The White Sox ran away with this game by scoring nine unanswered runs, and Escobar's error shows just how delicate the Royals' house of cards is.
Prior to the seventh, it was setting up to be James Shields' 15th loss of the season, and a classic one. The Royals strung together five consecutive productive plate appearances with one out in the third to take a 3-0 lead. Shields struck out Lucas Duda to end the inning, and returned to the dugout exasperated with himself.
Those were the only runs Shields allowed during a typically sturdy quality start. He allowed six hits and two walks while striking out five and kept the ball inside the park, which is the idea.
The Sox couldn't muster much support for him through the first two-thirds of this game against Jakob Junis, outside of Tim Anderson. Anderson had a tremendous night, going 3-for-3 with a triple, double, two stolen bases and his first unintentional walk in 161 plate appearances.
While the Sox struggled with runners in scoring position, Anderson kept making it simple to drive him in. They stranded him after his one-out triple in the second, but he didn't give up on them. In the fourth, he drew a walk with two outs, stole second and scored on Nicky Delmonico's single through the right side.
And in the sixth, after a double that was nearly a carbon copy of his triple -- a deep drive that beat Alex Gordon to the wall -- he stole third and came home on Delmonico's chopper to narrow KC's lead to 3-2.
Anderson and Delmonico teamed up once more in the seventh. With runners on first and second, Anderson tried to check his swing on a slider, but ended up sort of flinging the ball into shallow left field for an RBI single. That's when pitching coach Cal Eldred came to the mound, after which Delmonico cranked the homer for his third, fourth and fifth RBIs of the game.
Bullet points:
* Yoan Moncada returned to the leadoff spot and had a nice night, going 1-for-4 with a walk and zero strikeouts. One of his outs was a ripped liner to first.
*Avisail Garcia was lifted after two innings after what the team called a manager's decision. It's hard to tell the reason, because while he didn't sprint down the line on his inning-ending flyout to right in the first inning, he had Matt Davidson in front of him.
*The Sox won the war on the basepaths, going 3-for-3 against Sal Perez while Omar Narvaez gunned down Whit Merrifield on the Royals' only attempt.
Record: 45-78 | Box score
