Danny Duffy turns in another gem and Greg Holland closes out Royals’ win over Angels

The Los Angeles Angels didn’t get many chances against Kansas City Royals veteran left-hander Danny Duffy, and by the end of Tuesday night they sure wished they’d done more with the shots they had.

Duffy’s lone blemish came courtesy of the athletic freak Shohei Ohtani, who blasted a solo home run in the fifth inning. That homer snapped Duffy’s streak of 10 2/3 scoreless innings to start the season.

One night after the Angels tagged the Royals for 10 runs, Duffy held them to one run off eight hits and a solitary walk in six innings. The Angels scratched out another run against the bullpen, but the Royals held on for a 3-2 win in front of an announced crowd of 6,404 at Kauffman Stadium to even the three-game series.

The teams will play the rubber match on Wednesday afternoon.

“That’s probably the best I’ve ever seen Danny Duffy,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “That was so good, best fastball we’ve seen from him, behind-in-the-count changeups, using the slider. Didn’t need the curveball too much today. The slider was really effective.

“He had a really good rhythm, controlled counts. It was exactly the kind of start we needed today. We were pretty shallow in the pen and needed him to take that game deeper for us.”

Duffy stranded eight men over six innings and turned in his second quality start of the season in as many tries. His fastball touched 97 mph, according to MLB Statcast.

Duffy finished his outing with an exclamation point as he pumped a 94 mph fastball past Jack Mayfield, who swung fruitlessly to end the top of the sixth with the bases loaded as Duffy preserved a 3-1 lead.

“I felt like early on I had a really good heater,” Duffy said. “I was talking to Whit in the second inning and I felt it. It felt good. I wanted to go get more and it was running all over the place. I tried to kind of tone it down a little bit in the second and from there on, kind of holster that extra when I needed it. I was able to stay in my lines and stay under control for the majority of that game.”

Offensively, the Royals hit 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position. Batters Nos. 4-9 in their lineup went hitless, yet they still manufactured just enough scoring on a night when Duffy stood tall.

Whit Merrifield went 2 for 4 with two runs scored and two stolen bases, while Salvador Perez went 2 for 4 with an RBI and Carlos Santana had a sacrifice fly and drove in two runs for the Royals (5-4).

Andrew Benintendi (1 for 3, run scored, stolen base) walked and scored on Santana’s sacrifice fly in the first inning.

Merrifield’s stolen base on the front end of a double steal with Bentinendi trailing in the third inning put him in position to score from third base on Santana’s ground ball to second base.

The Royals’ razor-thin margin of victory came on thanks to an unearned run in the fifth inning.

After Ohtani’s homer cut the Royals’ lead in half, 2-1, Merrifield took advantage of a miscue to reach base for the second time in the game.

Angels catcher Kurt Suzuki dropped a high pop-up in foul territory to extend Merrifield’s at-bat. Given a second life, Merrifield smacked a slider into right field for a single. He then stole second base — his second stolen base of the night — to move into scoring position.

“Always looking to take the extra 90 feet,” Merrifield said. “Obviously, there’s times where you’re going to be a little more aggressive, a little more opportunistic. And there’s times when you’re going to be a little more passive and make sure you’re getting that 90 feet.

“It’s no secret our offense has been fighting the last couple games. That first one, I felt like I needed to get to third with less than two outs to give us a chance to do multiple things to score the run. It worked out for us. Then I got a good jump on that second one. … Salvy came up with the huge two-out hit for us to get us that third run. That was really big.”

Benintendi flew out to left field for what should have been the third out of the inning, but the inning continued and brought Perez to the plate with two outs and a runner in scoring position. Perez swatted a 3-2 pitch into left field for a broken-bat RBI single as Merrifield scored.

That run restored the Royals’ two-run advantage and gave them a 3-1 edge. The third run proved crucial after Suzuki’s sacrifice fly in the eighth, the 700th RBI of his career, made it a one-run game again.

Relief pitcher Greg Holland pitched the final four outs for the Royals, earning the save. With one out in the ninth, he gave up back-to-back singles to David Fletcher and Ohtani. Holland struck out Mike Trout and walked Albert Pujols to load the bases with two outs.

Perez saved a wild pitch from Holland and rifled a throw that caught Fletcher trying to retreat to third base for the final out.

“I went through spells where I swear I create my own turmoil sometimes, unconsciously,” Holland said. “But it’s still a whole lot of fun to me. When you face a team like that, you know that there’s not going to be a part of that order that’s going to be really easy. So you go into games like that a little more fired up about it.”

Roster moves

Prior to Tuesday’s game, the Royals announced that they’d optioned first baseman/outfielder Ryan McBroom to the alternate training site and placed Josh Staumont on the IL without designating an injury.

The Royals selected the contract of right-handed pitcher Ervin Santana, who signed a minor-league contract this offseason, and recalled right-handed reliever Tyler Zuber from the alternate training site.

Then before Wednesday’s game, the Royals activated Staumont from the injured list and optioned right-hander Carlos Hernandez to the alternate site. They also designated outfielder Nick Heath for assignment to make room for Santana on the 40-man roster.

McBroom played in three games and had just four at-bats (0 for 4, one walk, one run scored) this season.

Last season, MLB loosened its rules on injury designations because of privacy concerns and COVID-related matters.

Teams are not allowed to release information about an individual player’s status regarding contracting the virus, symptoms or contact tracing unless given permission by the player. However, players designated to MLB as being on the COVID injury list give teams roster flexibility.