KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The inning looked over. Bailey Falter had the third out in his glove. The Royals were ready to jog off the field at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday night. Then the Yankees pointed at a replay monitor, and the whole night changed.
What happened next turned a tidy 1-0 frame into a four-run avalanche. It also set the tone for one of the ugliest Yankees-Royals nights of the season.
Falter drew the start in a bullpen game, the second such plan the Royals had run in a week. The left-hander has struggled since arriving in Kansas City at last summer’s trade deadline. Tuesday brought more of the same. He retired the first two Yankees hitters quickly. Then the trouble started.
Cody Bellinger jumped on a middle-middle slider and crushed a solo homer to right. Paul Goldschmidt followed with a double. Ben Rice then lined a ball toward right fielder Jac Caglianone. The exit velocity read 107.4 mph. It was scorched.
Caglianone seemed to hesitate before charging in. He reached down and appeared to make a snow-cone grab, the ball peeking from the top of his glove. The umpire ruled it a catch. The inning, it seemed, was done.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone had other ideas.
Overturned catch flips a 1-0 inning into a four-run Yankees burst
Here is where the night tilted. Boone challenged the call on the field. The replay crew took a long look at the sinking liner. They could not confirm that Caglianone had secured the ball before it touched the grass. The out was wiped away. Rice was credited with an RBI single, and Goldschmidt scored from second. The review lasted more than a minute. Falter threw warmup tosses while he waited.
The reversal flipped the entire inning the Yankees’ way. Instead of leading 1-0, the Yankees were still hitting in the first. Two pitches later, Amed Rosario launched a 420-foot, two-run homer. The Yankees led 4-0 before the Royals ever came to the plate. A close replay decision had handed the Yankees a crooked number.
Caglianone could not understand the ruling. He felt he had control of the ball the whole way. Speaking after the game, the rookie outfielder broke down the play that flipped the inning toward the Yankees.
“Top-spin liner at like 107 mph,” Caglianone said. “[On] replay, I thought I had a pretty secure grip on the ball before it, I guess, touched the ground. Little confused by that. … I think just because it was hit as hard as it was, it kind of kicked my wrist back for it to touch the ground like that. I don’t really know how it’s not a catch.”
Falter and the Royals bullpen buried under 24 hits
The Yankees did not let up after the gift from the replay room. By the top of the third inning, the Yankees already had 12 hits. The Yankees bats kept hammering. Falter was charged with seven runs in just 2 1/3 innings. The damage pushed his ERA to a bloated 13.97 across 9 2/3 innings this season. The average exit velocity against him Tuesday was 100.3 mph.
The first inning told the whole story of his night. The Yankees put seven balls in play against Falter in that first inning. Six of them registered exit velocities above 100 mph. The lowest expected batting average among those seven was .460. That number belonged to Rosario’s home run.
Falter sounded like a pitcher caught in a role he could not settle into. He pointed to the uncertainty of bouncing between the bullpen and a sudden start.
“Just didn’t really have anything behind the ball today, so I don’t know if that’s just being in the bullpen for five days and then getting a start or not really having a role,” Falter said. “Just rolling with the punches right now.”
Manager Matt Quatraro had said before the game that Falter would be in a better spot with time to prepare. The left-hander did not sound convinced. He described a routine thrown into chaos.
“I’ve been in the bullpen the past few days, been trying to do my bullpen routine,” Falter said. “Trying to stay ready, just in case I do get in the game. And then just another last-minute start. Kind of just throws a whole wrench in the plan.”
The bullpen behind him offered no relief. The Yankees feasted on Falter, Luinder Avila, Steven Cruz, Eli Morgan and even infielder Tyler Tolbert. The Yankees racked up 24 hits in all, including six home runs. The Royals managed six hits. Their lone run came on Bobby Witt Jr.’s solo shot off Cam Schlittler in the third.
A 12-game skid and a fading Royals season
The loss carried a heavier weight than a single blowout. Kansas City has now dropped 12 straight regular-season games to the Yankees, a skid dating to Sept. 11, 2024. The bigger worry is the broader slide. At 22-33, the Royals have lost 12 of their last 15. They sit nine games back in the American League Central. They are five games out of the final wild-card spot, with six teams ahead of them.
The frustration is starting to surface in the clubhouse. First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino did not hide it. He explained why a lopsided defeat like this one stings more when it piles onto a losing stretch.
“This is the kind of game that would normally be a throwaway,” Pasquantino said. “But when you stack it on top of yesterday and the days before, I think that’s when they really hurt.”
Quatraro is not ready to panic. He insisted the group will keep grinding rather than tear things down.
“There’s no alternative but to stay the course,” Quatraro said. “We’re not going to blow things up. These guys are working their butts off.”
For the Yankees, the math was simple. One overturned catch opened the door. The Yankees bats did the rest.
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