When a slumping baseball team travels on the road to play one of the hottest clubs in the league, the outlook never looks promising. For the Royals, they limped up to Washington, D.C., to finish out the first half against the Nationals, who had won eight of their previous nine contests. Despite the prediction on paper, Kansas City took game one from the surging Nationals in extra innings, 7-4.
Coming off an outing in which he allowed six runs but collected a win, Brad Keller’s next matchup would come against a red-hot offense. In the top of the first, that offense was put on full display.