Giants wrap up Kansas City Royals’ winless 6-game homestand. KC’s lost 7 straight

Where do the Kansas City Royals go from here?

At the beginning of their six-game homestand, they had a slim chance of potentially clinching a playoff spot at home, at Kauffman Stadium. They needed to win all six and get some external help from the Seattle Mariners.

A lot has changed in seven days.

The Royals’ postseason hopes are dimming. On Sunday, they registered just three hits in a 2-0 loss to the San Francisco Giants. This defeat is significant as KC is now 82-74 — and riding another seven-game losing streak.

“I don’t know what level to put on it, right?” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “Every guy in there is frustrated. You come here to win and we make that our goal every single day.”

Giants ace Blake Snell silenced the Royals’ bats Sunday. He tossed six shutout innings and recorded nine strikeouts. The Royals had trouble with Snell’s curveball throughout the game. The pitch generated 12 swings and nine whiffs, per Baseball Savant.

Tommy Pham and Bobby Witt Jr. recorded two-out singles against Snell. Collectively, however, the Royals struck out 13 times against the Giants (77-79).

“Every time we lose, it’s hard,” Royals captain Salvador Perez said. “We still have one more week and we are still in the playoffs.”

That’s true at the moment, but KC scored just one run against the Giants all weekend. The last time the Royals were shut out in consecutive games was June 22-23 against the Texas Rangers.

“It’s an easy narrative to say, well, it’s a bad week,” Quatraro said. “But so what? We have another week and it can be a good week. We have to attack it one day at a time. You can’t look forward to next weekend or trying to get into the playoffs. You’ve got to win the game in front of you.”

The Giants scored both of their runs early against Royals right-hander Seth Lugo via three hits in the second inning.

Giants designated hitter Jerar Encarnacion led off with a single. Outfielder Grant McCray followed with an RBI single and it was 1-0. Then McCray scored, too, as infielder’s Brett Wisely’s 27th RBI of the season.

“I thought I made a couple of mistakes in the second inning there,” Lugo said. “You now, I thought they were easy to make an adjustment from and felt like I did that and kept them off balance the rest of the time.”

Lugo was able to settle into a groove after the second inning. He retired 16 consecutive batters to end his final regular-season start of the year at Kauffman Stadium.

Missed previous games of the series?

Game 1: Royals lose fifth consecutive game in Giants 2-1 victory

Game 2: Royals shutout 9-0 against San Francisco Giants

Here are more notable aspects of Sunday’s game:

Royals fail to score in eighth inning

The Royals didn’t have many scoring chances against the Giants. Their best opportunity came in the eighth inning against side-arm reliever Tyler Rogers.

Rogers hit pinch-hitter Michael Massey to put the leadoff man on base. Two batters later, Royals outfielder Kyle Isbel singled and Massey moved into scoring position.

The inning seemed to be setting up well for the Royals when the Giants opted to roll the dice and intentionally walk Witt.

“I think every team in the league would’ve walked Bobby in that situation, whether we were going good or not,” Quatraro said.

Perez came to the plate with the bases loaded and two away ... and his manager hoping for heroics.

“That was going to be a big moment for Salvy,” Quatraro said. “I thought, ‘This was meant to be,’ and I thought, ‘He’s come through in this spot a million times in front of these fans,’ and I was excited.”

Instead, Rogers retired Perez on five pitches, the at-bat ending on a pop-up to second base.

San Francisco avoided the big inning. The Royals finished 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position, stranding seven men on base.

Playoff implications

The Royals’ lone postseason path now is through the AL Wild Card.

Sunday’s loss to the Giants doesn’t help matters. The Royals are tied with the Detroit Tigers (82-74) for the second AL wild-card spot entering the final week of the regular season.

The Tigers won two of three games against the Baltimore Orioles this weekend. Detroit will begin a three-game home series against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night.

An important note: The Royals own the regular-season tiebreaker over the Tigers.

The Minnesota Twins are also in the wild-card discussion. The Twins are a game behind both of their AL Central rivals after getting swept in Boston on Sunday.

What’s next: The Royals are off Monday. They begin a three-game road series against the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night.