The Kansas Metropolis Royals have been certainly one of baseball’s nice surprises this season and the story continued with a 7-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday evening. The massive blow on this one was a sixth-inning, go-ahead grand slam for Royals left fielder MJ Melendez. 

The blow got here on the twelfth pitch of the at-bat, after Melendez had fouled off seven pitches, six of which got here with two strikes. What a powerful battle there from which to emerge victorious. Right here it’s: 

Since pitch counts have been tracked, 1988, that’s the third-longest at-bat that resulted in a grand slam behind Mookie Betts (July 12, 2018) and Gary Scott (April 20, 1992), each of whom went deep on the thirteenth pitch (per Sarah Langs). We will name that historic. Kudos to Melendez for hanging so robust. 

This additionally comes amid a horrible season for Melendez, personally, as he is now slashing .168/.231/.352. He was a profession .227/.314/.396 hitter getting into the season. He does now have eight homers and 23 RBI, so there’s been some energy, however the Royals may stand to see higher consistency from the 25-year-old. 

The Royals transfer to 41-31 on the season. This victory needed to really feel further candy, on condition that they entered the sport having misplaced 5 of their final six video games. Most preseason projection programs had the Royals successful within the ballpark of 75 video games this season, so to be approaching the midway level of the season 10 video games over .500 means they’ve completed excellent work in rising their playoff odds. In reality, they at present occupy the second AL Wild Card spot.