Cincinnati Reds at Kansas City Royals: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIN | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 1 |
| KC | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 1 |
The Story
The Cincinnati Reds held on to defeat the Kansas City Royals 5-4 at Kauffman Stadium on June 13, 2023, completing a game that was effectively decided in the second inning. Cincinnati erupted for five runs in the top of the second, building the lead that would prove to be the entire margin of victory. Kansas City chipped away with a run in the first and two more in the third, the latter driven by a Bobby Witt Jr. home run off Brandon Williamson that swung win probability 16.9 points in the Royals' favor and made it a two-run game. The DiamondIQ model entered the night giving Kansas City a 31 percent chance of winning, but that number steadily eroded as the Reds' bullpen locked down the middle and late innings.
Lucas Sims was the central figure in preserving the Cincinnati lead, finishing as the game's top pitcher by WPA at plus-49.8 percent. His work in the seventh inning was particularly consequential, as he struck out Salvador Perez and Nick Pratto in sequence, those two outs swinging the win probability 14.6 and 11.8 points respectively against Kansas City. Edward Olivares then popped out in the eighth with a further 16.5-point negative swing for the Royals, and the door remained shut. Austin Cox contributed plus-11.0 percent WPA and Daniel Duarte added plus-7.9 percent as the Cincinnati staff collectively stifled the Kansas City lineup after the third.
The final tension arrived in the bottom of the ninth, when Alexis Diaz struck out Dairon Blanco to end the game, a single out worth plus-31.6 percent in win probability. On the offensive side, Blanco paradoxically led all batters at plus-42.9 percent WPA and plus-0.8 RE24, a reflection of how much leverage surrounded his plate appearances throughout the night. Witt finished second among batters at plus-8.1 percent WPA and led all players with plus-1.7 RE24 on the strength of his home run, while TJ Friedl contributed plus-2.7 percent WPA and plus-0.9 RE24 for the Reds. The DiamondIQ model closed with a zero percent home win probability, a clean endpoint to Kansas City's inability to convert its opportunities into the runs necessary to overcome that second-inning deficit.