KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Royals hung around long enough to watch Brewers ace Corbin Burnes head for the showers.
Then they pounced on the Milwaukee bullpen.
Jorge Soler hit a slump-busting homer to tie the game, Nicky Lopez bunted home the go-ahead run, and the Kansas City Royals used a late rally to squeak past the Brewers 6-4 on Wednesday night to wrap up a two-game sweep — their first series win over Milwaukee since June 2015.
Scott Barlow (2-1) got the final two outs of the seventh inning, Greg Holland worked the eighth and Josh Staumont coughed up a run in the ninth before striking out Omar Narvaez looking with two runners aboard for his fifth save.
“You’re going to have these days when you’re facing pitchers like we faced yesterday and Burnes today. Those guys have good stuff,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “They’re not going to give up much.”
The Royals managed just two hits off Burnes when his pitch count caused him to leave leading 3-2 after six innings. Soler was the first batter of the seventh and promptly hammered J.P. Feyereisen’s second pitch to end his 0-for-12 skid.
Feyereisen (0-2) then gave up Kelvin Gutierrez’s single and walked Michael Taylor. A sacrifice bunt advanced both runners, and Lopez turned an attempted squeeze play into a bunt single that allowed pinch runner Jarrod Dyson to score easily.
“It’s just unfortunate,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “With a one-run lead, that’s not much margin for error.”
The Royals added two more runs off Brad Boxberger in the eighth before their own bullpen finished things off.
“We just keep picking up each other,” Royals starter Brad Keller said. “We’re clicking as a team again.”
Taylor hit a two-run homer in the second and robbed Jackie Bradley Jr. of a home run with a spectacular leaping catch in the sixth. The Brewers still scored on the sacrifice fly, but Taylor’s catch saved a run and kept Kansas City within 3-2.
Bradley homered off Keller earlier in the game to end his own 0-for-22 slump.
Milwaukee is just 4-12 after a 17-10 start to the season.
“That’s baseball,” Burnes said. “We got off to a hot start early; we’ve scuffled a little bit. They made a couple of good swings tonight and it got away from us. We’re in a good spot as a team. All it’s going to take is one game for everything to line up.”
Steady drizzle predicted all afternoon began in the third, then the rain picked up in the top of the fourth, and for a while it looked as if it would be a race to play enough innings to call the game official.
The showers briefly subsided, though, and Burnes and Keller kept dueling. Burnes baffled the Royals with his darting 85 mph curveball and searing 95 mph cutter while Keller kept getting the Brewers to chop into groundouts.