Nick Pratto hits a walk-off home run to lift Kansas City Royals past the Boston Red Sox

The first pitch thrown to a Kansas City Royals batter on Saturday night got smashed 434 feet to center field, and the last one thrown to a Royals batter was swatted 424 feet to center field.

The latter came with a whole lot more celebration, as rookie first baseman Nick Pratto hit a 3-2 pitch to center for a walk-off home run to beat the Boston Red Sox 5-4 in front of an announced 19,136 in the third game of a four-game series at Kauffman Stadium.

Pratto’s first home run in front of the home crowd at Kauffman capped an eight-pitch at-bat that included him fouling off a pair of two-strike pitches before he took ball three and forced Red Sox reliever Garrett Whitlock to come over the heart of the plate with the count full.

“Throughout the at-bat, he was making a lot of pitches to the edges, and I felt like I was hanging in there and not chasing him around the zone,” Pratto said. “I bought myself that mistake late in the at-bat. It was a situation where I felt like I executed.”

A 23-year-old left-handed-hitting former first-round draft pick (14th overall in 2017) out of Huntington Beach, California, Pratto said he couldn’t recall hitting a walk-off home run at any level of his baseball playing life.

The last walk-off hit of any kind that came to mind was a walk-off single he remembers that won Huntington Beach the Little League World Series over Japan in 2011.

Of course this walk-off came at the professional level and set off a raucous on-field celebration with most of his teammates bursting out of the dugout by the time he’d got halfway around the bases.

Royals manager Mike Matheny said he couldn’t even see Pratto rounding the bases because everyone in the dugout came rushing out. Matheny said he almost got run over by rookie shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. carrying a water cooler.

“I was just really happy, one, that it went out and, two, that it didn’t go right at somebody, and, three, that we ended up winning the game,” Pratto said. “So that’s just how it goes.”

Pratto is part of the youth movement that has quickly become the theme of the post-MLB trade deadline portion of the season for the Royals.

Rookies Nate Eaton, Michael Massey and Pratto joined the club in recent weeks after having come up through the Royals’ farm system playing alongside another group of Royals youngsters who joined the club earlier this season such as MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino and Witt.

“I’ve been here for a little over two weeks now,” Pratto said. “We’ve had so many close games where we’ve been in it and maybe one or two situations we could’ve taken advantage of. It’s been nice the last few series to have some things go our way.

“But the team’s reaction meant the world to me, that we pulled through a tough win today on both sides of the ball. It was really good to see.”

That also includes the Royals bevy of young pitchers who were also coming up through the farm system at the same time and who matched up against those position players during the 2020 alternate site.

The Royals’ active roster as of Saturday night included 10 players drafted by the Royals in 2017 or later, including Saturday’s starting pitcher Daniel Lynch and Pratto as well as Melendez, who hit the leadoff homer in the bottom of the first, and Kyle Isbel, who went 2 for 3 with two runs scored and a homer of his own in the fourth.

Witt, the No. 2 overall draft pick in 2019, drove in two runs for the Royals (43-65).

“That was amazing,” Lynch said. “I was so happy just to see Nick so fired up like that because I’ve played with him for a long time. I know the work he has put in and kind of his journey.

“I’ve kind of watched it every step of the way with him, and I’m just really proud of him and so happy for my friend to be able to do something like that, experience something like that. And in the end, I’m really happy we got the win.”

A back-and-forth game

Lynch gave up four runs on seven hits, including two home runs, in six innings. He didn’t walk a batter for the second start in a row, and he struck out six.

First innings have been a hurdle for Lynch. Through his first 16 starts, 33.3% of the runs he’d allowed came in the first inning (14 of 42).

Saturday evening, Lynch retired the side in order in the first inning. But the Red Sox scored in three of the next five innings, each time scoring enough to tie the game after the Royals had taken slim leads.

In the second inning with the Royals up 1-0, the Red Sox scored a run on a Bobby Dalbec chopper that Witt couldn’t field cleanly.

Then after Witt made amends with a two-run single in the third inning to give the Royals a 3-1 advantage, Lynch gave up a two-run homer to Dalbec in the top of the fourth.

Isbel’s solo homer in the bottom of the fourth gave the lead back to the Royals. However, Lynch gave up a solo homer in the sixth to Alex Verdugo.

That Verdugo homer marked the first home run allowed by Lynch to a left-handed batter in his major-league career, and it made the score 4-4.

“To give us six innings and give us a chance to win, I felt like there was some opportunities where I could have shut them down,” Lynch said of his outing. “Where we scored some runs and I kind of allowed them to come back. But overall, the things that I can control, I attacked really. I had a good game plan. I felt like I made pitches, so I can live with that.

“I thought my slider was terrible, but that happens. But to be able to go out there and just keep attacking, I can sleep well at night knowing that.”

The score remained tied 4-4 until the ninth inning. Royals relievers Tayalor Clarke, Scott Barlow and Dylan Coleman pitched one scoreless inning apiece.

With the Royals down to their last strike before extra innings, Pratto brought the game to an end.

“That was just a beautiful ending,” Matheny said. “The ball went in the air and it’s just tough to get it out of this park in that direction. I couldn’t believe how it continued to carry. We had some balls hit hard all night. Michael (A. Taylor) made some beautiful plays on balls that you’d think might have a chance.

“For that one to go, he really had to clip it. … Nick had a couple (strikeouts), had a double play that he hit pretty well, but (he was) not letting those add to the next one. Beautiful way to end.”