By MATT PIKE
Salvador Perez homered twice, Jac Caglianone hit the third longest home run at Kauffman Stadium since 2024, and the Kansas City Royals earned their first sweep of July and their first home sweep since May, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3 on Wednesday evening.
Perez gave the Royals the lead in the second inning, on the first pitch of the inning, with his first home run of the night and his 12th of the season, blasting the ball 444 feet to center field for a 1-0 lead. Pirates starter Bailey Falter wouldn't give up another hit in the inning, and another run until the fourth inning.
The fourth inning saw Caglianone hit the longest home run by a Royals rookie. After the inning started with a double by Maikel Garcia, Perez grounded out bringing Caglianone to the plate, where like Perez he needed just one pitch to send the ball deep to center field and over all three walls, sailing 466 feet to extend Kansas City's lead to 3-0.
The 466-foot shot was the longest homer by a Royals rookie since Statcast began tracking distances in 2015, and it’s tied for the 10th-longest home run by any player, fourth longest by a Royal, at Kauffman Stadium. It was only eight feet shy of Brandon Moss’ record 474-foot blast in 2017. And it was just three feet shy of the longest homer hit at "The K" this year, Aaron Judge’s 469-foot blast on June 10.
Kris Bubic's strong start for the Royals stalled in the sixth inning as he loaded the bases, and the Pirates tied up the game off Bubic as Oneil Cruz grounded out to drive in Tommy Pham, who opened the inning with a single, before Ke'Bryan Hayes singled into left field to bring home Andrew McCutchen and Bryan Reynolds to tie up the game in the inning. Bubic was replaced by John Schreiber who struck out Joey Bart to end the inning.
Schreiber kept Pittsburgh off the scoreboard again in the seventh, and after the Ryals were unable to score in the bottom half Lucas Erceg pitched the eighth inning, again preventing the Pirates from scoring, leading to the bottom of the eighth inning where Perez got Kansas City the lead back with his second home run of the night, 13th of the season, again seeing just one pitch before sending the ball soaring to center field.
Carlos Estévez came on in the ninth and struck out Hayes to start the inning before giving up a single to Adam Frazier. No harm would be done though as Estévez forced Spencer Horwitz to fly out, before Isiah Kiner-Falefa grounded into a forceout as Bobby Witt Jr flipped the ball to second base to get Frazier out, securing Estévez's 25th save of the season.
Erceg earned the win in relief, improving to 4-2 on the season, pitching one inning and striking out one. At the plate, Perez was 3-for-4 with two home runs and two RBIs. Freddy Fermin was 2-for-3 with two doubles.
Kansas City is off tomorrow and are back in action Friday welcoming in the other team from New York to Kauffman Stadium. Michael Wacha (4-9, 3.83 ERA) takes the mound for the Royals against Kodai Senga (7-3, 1.47 ERA) for the Mets on Friday. First pitch is at 7:10, pregame coverage will begin at 6:30 Friday on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.