Royals Sound Off On White Sox's Dropped Pop-Up That Handed Victory To KC

Things bounced the Kansas City Royals' way on Tuesday night.

The Royals trailed the lowly Chicago White Sox 3-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning. But everything changed when Drew Waters stepped to the plate against reliever Cam Booser with the leadoff runner, Mark Canha on first base.

Waters hit what looked to be a routine pop-up just to the left of where second baseman Chase Meidroth had been standing. But Meidroth lost the ball in the night sky, and it ticked off his glove, then clanged off his head into shallow right field. Plus, right fielder Michael A. Taylor overthrew second base on a golden opportunity to get the force out on Canha.

From there, it was all Royals. Jonathan India tied the game with a single, then Bobby Witt Jr. won it with a deep fly ball just out of the reach of Luis Robert Jr. in center field to send Royals fans at Kauffman Stadium home happy.

The Royals weren't gloating about the White Sox's downfall after the victory, but they certainly acknowledged their good fortune in light of Meidroth's drop.

“A win is a win, especially in the big leagues,” said catcher Salvador Perez, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com.

Manager Matt Quatraro pointed out that as unlikely as it was when the ball left Waters' bat that things would work out in the Royals' favor, at least it gave them better odds than a strikeout.

“Getting the ball in play is all you can do,” Quatraro said. “They were cruising there. (White Sox starter Sean Burke) had a really low pitch count, so we had been putting the ball in play, but we needed to capitalize on an opportunity, and we were able to do that.”

The Royals, who have now won 13 of their last 15 games, will certainly take any good fortune they can run into. They've got two games left against this putrid White Sox team this week to keep doing damage.

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