By MATT PIKE
Luis Castillo pitched six innings of three-hit ball, Jorge Polanco and J.P. Crawford drove in runs, and the Seattle Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals 2-0 to climb back into a first-place tie with the Houston Astros in the AL West.
Castillo dueled with Kansas City counterpart Stephen Kolek, who allowed two runs, one earned, while pitching into the eighth inning. One run came on Polanco’s double and the other after an astute move by manager Dan Wilson in the eighth.
Kolek appeared to have retired the first two batters of the inning when Wilson challenged that second baseman Michael Massey set up on the grass ahead of Dominic Canzone’s groundout, in violation of Major League Baseball’s defensive shift rules. The challenge was successful, Canzone was awarded first base, and reliever Daniel Lynch IV eventually gave up Crawford’s run-scoring double to make it 2-0.
Castillo and Kolek, who took the loss to fall to 5-6 on the season, were so stingy that each allowed just a pair of runners over the first four innings, and both times they were on back-to-back hits. The difference was the Royals paired together singles and stranded both runners while the Mariners got Josh Naylor’s single and an RBI double by Polanco for the opening run.
Castillo only allowed one other runner, a single by Royals rookie Carter Jensen in the fifth. Kolek similarly breezed through the Seattle lineup until a two-out walk to Naylor in the seventh; he promptly struck out Polanco to end the inning.
The Royals had just five hits in the game with five hitters getting one hit each.
Kansas City will welcome Toronto to Kauffman Stadium to wrap up their final homestand. Michael Lorenzen (5-11, 4.91) will take the mound for the Royals. First pitch is at 6:40pm, pregame coverage begins at 6 on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
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