Salvador Perez’s home run to lead off the fourth inning against Yankees starter Carlos Rodon sparked a four-run inning to lift the Kansas City Royals to a 4-2 victory over New York on Monday night at Yankee Stadium to knot their ALDS series at one game apiece.
Yankees bats were alarmingly quiet despite a shaky performance from Royals starter Cole Ragans. Kansas City’s bullpen, however, held the Yankees to just a single consolation run in the bottom of the ninth over five innings of work.
Rodon flew threw the Royals’ lineup with little issue across the first three innings of Game 2, but a 2-0 slider to Perez in the fourth was deposited into the left-field seats of Yankee Stadium.
It continued Perez’s ownership of Rodon — the veteran catcher was 12-for-26 with three home runs off the southpaw in his career.
Yuli Gurriel followed Pere’z blast off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. He came around to score on Tommy Pham’s single to give the visitors the lead.
Pham stole second and scored on Garrett Hampson’s two-out single, spelling the end of Rodon’s night. Off reliever Ian Hamilton, Maikel Garcia drove in the fourth run of the inning with another single.
The Yankees’ biggest bat, Aaron Judge, was silent once again going 1-for-3 with an infield single. He is now 1-for-7 with four strikeouts in the series.
Giancarlo Stanton gave the Yankees the lead in the third inning with an RBI single, but it was the only big hit they would get all night. New York went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday night.
Jazz Chisholm hit a solo home run to lead off the ninth and Jon Berti singled with two outs, but Gleyber Torres grounded out to end the game with an Soto on deck.
Game 3 is scheduled for Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium.
