The Kansas City Royals struggled to keep the San Diego Padres contained, as the Friars broke through the bullpen to claim a 5-1 win Saturday, June 21 at Petco Park.

Fernando Tatis Jr put the game out of reach with two outs in the seventh inning, when he belted a three-run home run off reliever Trevor Clarke. Before then, it was a tight game that saw the Royals once again struggle to advance base runners, going 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and leave seven on base. The only Royals RBI came in the third, when John Rave sent a double to right field that allowed Drew Waters to score from first. The Padres got on the board in the second, when Jake Cronenworth’s grounder to second was paced enough for Gavin Sheets to score from third. The Padres claimed their winning run in the bottom half of the third, when Luis Arraez dribbled a grounder to center field that score Martín Maldonado.

Noah Cameron was tagged with this third loss of the season, going 5.1 innings and allowing two runs on five hits and three walks, with two strikeouts. The Royals did coax three walks out of Padres starter Dylan Cease and a hit batter, but Cease limited the Royals to three hits and one run, striking out four across his 6.2 innings to get the win.

The Royals are now 38-39, 9.5 games behind Detroit in the AL Central, while 1.5 games behind Boston for the third wild card spot. The three-game series concludes Sunday afternoon with Seth Lugo on the mound for KC; pregame is at 2:30 p.m., with first pitch at 3:10 p.m., on KMMO-FM 102.9.