Royals 5, White Sox 3: OK, the offense is ready now

Last Opening Day, the White Sox blasted six homers — including three from Matt Davidson — en route to a rousing route.

This one was a much quieter affair … until the ninth. Brad Keller held the Sox down through seven shutout innings, and the White Sox didn’t have enough outs remaining to make their furious ninth-inning rally count.

The Sox did make this game far more interesting than it had a right to be. They trailed 5-0 entering the ninth, but loaded the bases over the course of the first four batters. Closer Wily Peralta gave up a single to Leury Garcia and a walk to Yoan Moncada, then induced a popout from Jose Abreu.

Instead of sticking with his best guy, Ned Yost went to the bullpen. And then he kept going back to it.

In came Jake Diekman, who walked Yonder Alonso to load the bases for Eloy Jimenez, then hit Jimenez on the toe to spoil the shutout. Diekman got a nubber off the end of Daniel Palka’s bat toward third, but it was hit softly enough that Hunter Dozier could only get the forceout at third, and another run scored.

Yost went back out to the mound to attack Tim Anderson with righty Kevin McCarthy. That didn’t work, because Anderson lined a single to left to make it 5-3, and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate. Welington Castillo pinch-hit for James McCann to draw a walk and bring forth the fourth pitcher of the inning.

Brad Boxberger was the one to get the third out. Yolmer Sanchez put a good swing on it, but didn’t quite barrel up what turned out to be a game-ending flyout to right.

Alas, after all that, Carlos Rodon was still tagged for the loss. Rodon matched Keller pitch-for-pitch over the first three innings, but eventually he, the White Sox defense and the White Sox bullpen all eroded.

At first, Rodon had the misfortune of giving up a leadoff triple as a his only hit. Adalberto Mondesi reached on a three-bagger that was restored by a challenge — the umpires thought Moncada tagged him when he briefly came off the bag — and he scored on Alex Gordon’s sac fly. A leaping catch at the wall by Palka kept it from being an RBI double.

But Rodon’s fastball started drifting higher, the baserunners because more frequent, and it caught up to him in the sixth. Whit Merrifield reached on a blooper to start the inning, and then the league’s stolen-base leader went to work. He swiped second on a swinging strikeout, then took third during Alex Gordon’s plate appearance, which ended in an hit by pitch. Merrifield eventually scored on Jorge Soler’s shot through the left side.

Rodon then should’ve gotten out of the inning when Frank Schwindel hit a firm grounder to second, but Sanchez appeared to lean the wrong way upon contact, and his awkward stabbing attempt to his left didn’t work. What should’ve been a 4-6-3 double play instead turned into a run-scoring error.

Keller allowed just two hits and a walk over seven innings, and few batted balls that looked like potential hits. Both hits were ground-ball singles (one by Jose Abreu, one by Yoan Moncada), and only in Keller’s last inning did the Sox really drive the ball in the air. Both were lineouts to right.

That said, the Royals were smart to not rest their hopes entirely on Keller’s outing. They tacked on two more insurance runs in the seventh, and they ended up deciding the game.

Ryan Burr, who didn’t walk a batter over 11⅓ innings during the spring, walked Merrifield with one out. Mondesi then drove his second triple to right because Palka couldn’t cut it off, and Merrifield scored. Moncada temporarily stopped the bleeding by cutting down Mondesi at the plate after corralling the short hop, but another Soler RBI hit — a ringing double off Dylan Covey — made it moot.

Bullet points:

*Moncada had a great day, going 1-for-3 with a walk and no strikeouts at the plate, and acing all his chances in the field, including a fantastic charging play on a slow roller.

*Anderson’s ninth-inning single helped make up for an off start to what he hopes is a rebound season. He committed a random error by sailing a throw on a Martin Maldonado grounder in the third. Wet turf or not, he had time to make an under-control peg. He also missed a chance to beat out a high throw by stepping on the back side of the bag in the eighth inning. He was initially ruled safe, but a replay overturned it because Schwindel’s foot hit the bag first.

*Covey committed the Sox’ third error by bouncing a throw to first on a slow roller back to the mound. Abreu couldn’t handle the hop.

*Eloy Jimenez had a debut to forget, although he was able to notch some firsts. Keller struck him out in his first two plate appearances, then induced a weak 4-3 on the shortstop side of second. But hey, the HBP gave him his first RBI, and he also scored his first run on Anderson’s base hit.

*The start of the game was delayed by rain for an hour and 46 minutes.

Record: 0-1 | Box score

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