In Wednesday’s box score, they looked like routine plays. Lorenzo Cain and Paulo Orlando each swiped bases in a 2-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants at Kauffman Stadium. Orlando was caught stealing once.
Yet the statistical accounting of the Royals’ running game could not quite describe another night of tactical gamesmanship from Rusty Kuntz, the club’s first-base coach and base-running coordinator.
The Royals attempted three delayed steals against Giants pitchers, a maneuver so rare that you may only see a handful a month in all of baseball. They were successful on two of them, with the only out coming when Orlando over-slid the second-base bag in the seventh inning.