Alex Gordon’s leap at the wall gave the Royals exactly the kind of lifeline they needed Monday at Comerica Park.
Kansas City beat the Tigers 7-6, and the game turned on a fourth-inning moment that looked gone off the bat. With two runners on and Detroit’s Mikie Mahtook sending a high drive to left against Royals starter Jakob Junis, Gordon drifted back to the fence, used the chain-link for balance and waited for the right instant to leave his feet.
“Off the bat,” Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain said, “I thought it was a homer.”
Gordon thought the same. He had made his share of home-run robberies before, but this one came with a strange ease to it, helped along by the wind and by the timing of the jump.
“Timed my jump perfectly,” he said.
The catch erased what would have been a three-run homer, protected a 5-0 lead and left Mahtook stunned after he rounded first. Royals manager Ned Yost called them “Crucial runs,” and the play fit a day in which Kansas City had to squeeze value out of every big moment.
“When I take BP, I actually practice that a little bit,” Gordon said. “When Salvy, Hos and Moose are hitting, the last couple of rounds, I try to go back to the fence and play around it. It’s a short fence and you can kind of grab it and get over it, so it’s something I do.”
The Royals were not done relying on defense. Later, Cain made a sliding catch with two outs in the sixth, keeping a 5-3 lead intact with two runners on base.
At the same time, Kansas City’s offense did enough to build a cushion. The Royals scored five runs against rookie Artie Lewicki in his major-league debut, including a four-run third that featured a two-run double from Melky Cabrera and a two-run homer from Eric Hosmer. Hosmer’s blast was his 23rd of the season, leaving him two shy of his career high.
Junis, meanwhile, gave up three runs over five innings and moved to 7-2 with a 4.48 ERA. The Tigers kept pushing, but Kansas City answered with more power in the late innings.
Salvador Perez homered in the seventh, his first since July 28, and Alcides Escobar added a solo shot in the eighth, his first since July 14 against Texas. Perez’s homer matched his career high with 22.
Then came the ninth, and another mess for the Royals bullpen. Brandon Maurer allowed a three-run homer to Nicholas Castellanos, forcing Scott Alexander into the game with two outs and two men on.
Alexander needed just four sinkers to get Mahtook to ground out to second and secure his third one-out save since Aug. 22.
“He can handle anything,” Yost said.
The win moved Kansas City back to .500 at 68-68 and left the Royals three games behind Minnesota in the American League wild-card race before the Twins played the Rays on Monday night.
The setting also mattered. The Royals were facing a stripped-down Tigers roster in Detroit, with Justin Verlander traded to Houston, Miguel Cabrera suspended for his role in a brawl with the Yankees and Victor Martinez out for the year because of a heart issue. Kansas City still had two more days there to try to take advantage.
“We haven’t lost hope or anything like that,” Gordon said. “There’s a lot of teams kind of bunched in the middle of the wild card. So we just got to keep winning.”
By the end, the Royals had gotten just enough from the bats, two game-saving defensive plays and another emergency stop from Alexander.
“Scotty came in and saved the day again,” Gordon said. “It was a good win.”
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