The Kansas City Royals did something Monday that fewer than two dozen teams in baseball history have ever done. They scored in every inning of a 15-1 blowout win over the Philadelphia Phillies, becoming just the 21st team to accomplish the feat. According to CBS Sports, there have been 24 perfect games in major league history, making scoring in every inning actually rarer than going 27 up, 27 down.
The Royals only batted in eight innings as the home team, with no bottom of the ninth needed given the lopsided score. That still counted. No American League team has ever scored in all nine innings, and Kansas City's eight-inning version puts them in exclusive company regardless.
The Phillies felt the damage early. Kansas City blasted Philadelphia ace Cristopher Sanchez for six runs in the first inning alone. Sanchez, who entered the game with a 2.00 ERA and was considered a possible All-Star Game starter, gave up a career-high nine runs in 3 1/3 innings before exiting. His ERA rose to 2.62 on the day, which still ranks among the best in the league, but the afternoon belonged entirely to the Royals.
Royals manager Matt Quatraro spoke about the offensive performance after the game. "There was a lot in the first inning that was really positive," he said. "... Continuing to add inning after inning (was big). As you can tell, those first four innings, they were one swing away from it being a totally different ballgame ... The offense stayed at it."
Utility man Tyler Tolbert was the standout individual performer. He went 5 for 5 with a double and his second career home run. In one afternoon, he raised his season batting line from .243/.310/.243 to .333/.383/.429. The Royals as a team finished with 22 hits, the 11th time in franchise history they have reached that mark in a single game. They sent 50 men to the plate, with 28 reaching base for a team on-base percentage of .560 on the day.
With the game well out of reach, the Phillies put third-string catcher Garrett Stubbs on the mound in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Royals still scored two runs against him on four hits and a walk, which pushed them past the threshold needed to officially score in every inning they batted.
The last team to score in every inning was the Chicago White Sox, who did it against Cleveland on September 12, 2016. The Royals themselves have done something similar before, scoring in all eight innings against the then-Oakland Athletics on September 14, 1998. The Phillies have been on the other side of this kind of game before as well. The New York Giants scored in every inning against Philadelphia on June 1, 1923.
Despite the historic nature of Monday's performance, the Royals remain one of baseball's struggling teams. The win improved their record to 37-54, which put them in a tie with the Colorado Rockies for the worst record in baseball. The Phillies fell to 50-41 and sit 3.5 games back in the NL East.
