Royals come up short vs. Hunter Brown, Astros

Jaylon Thompson, The Kansas City Star on Sep 15, 2026

Published in Baseball

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HOUSTON — Michael Wacha continues to prove his worth to the Kansas City Royals. And on a night when he didn’t have his best stuff, Wacha still gave the club a chance.

Wacha tossed six innings against the Houston Astros at Daikin Park. However, his Tuesday start was an uncharacteristic showing. Wacha allowed three homers — including two solo blasts to Astros leadoff hitter Jeremy Pena — in the Royals’ 4-2 loss.

Pena began the game with a home run. He crushed an 88.5-mph cutter that put Wacha in an early hole. And in the third inning, Pena hit a curveball to extend the Astros’ lead It was his fifth career multi-home run game.

Wacha tossed 61 of 99 pitches for strikes. He recorded seven groundouts and issued one walk. The Astros tacked on two more runs in the fifth. This time, Houston star Yordan Alvarez belted his 39th home run over the right-field wall.

All four runs were charged to Wacha (9-9). It was just the third time he allowed three homers in a game this season. The last occurrence was Aug. 17 against the Athletics.

Wacha has logged six or more innings in 23 of his 30 starts and now has an outside chance of reaching 200 innings for the first time in his career.

Meanwhile, the Royals had their chances to pick up Wacha offensively. The club struggled against Astros starter Hunter Brown, who recorded 10 strikeouts.

Brown didn’t surrender a hit until the fourth inning. And the Royals scored an inning later after Isaac Collins’ well-timed challenge led to a walk. From there, Carter Jensen hit an RBI double to cut into the deficit.

Jensen set the Royals’ rookie record for extra-base hits. He eclipsed Bobby Witt Jr. with his 58th extra-base hit of the season. Witt held the record since the 2022 campaign.

The Royals added an additional run on Vinnie Pasquantino's solo homer in the sixth inning — one of the club’s four hits in the game.

Brown earned his sixth victory as the Astros improved to 76-75. He allowed two hits while walking three batters.

Tuesday’s game also featured the returns of Maikel Garcia and Lucas Erceg. Garcia started at third base and went 1 for 3 with a walk.

Erceg pitched a scoreless seventh inning. He tossed 10 of 14 pitches for strikes and finished by striking out Jorge Barrosa to end his relief appearance.

What’s next?

The Royals will start left-hander Daniel Lynch IV (5-5, 3.52 ERA) in Wednesday’s matchup against the Astros. Houston will turn to right-hander Cristian Javier (2-5, 5.50 ERA) with first pitch set for 7:10 p.m. Central.