KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Desperation can manifest itself in funny ways on the baseball field. Nobody in Kansas City looks as cool day after day as Eric Hosmer, the Royals' first baseman, originator of a fauxhawk worn by kids around the city and boyfriend of the TV traffic reporter who sets hearts aflutter. And here were his Royals, down again to the Houston Astros, staring at a series deficit no playoff team wants, facing the very last person he needed to see.

Perhaps desperation isn't a strong enough word. This was survival mode.

That it happens to be the space in which the Royals proclaim themselves most comfortable and operate best says as much about the team as does their defense or bullpen or speed or contact rate or whatever else defines them. The Royals relish the sorts of evenings that would turn lesser clubs into mush, ones like Friday, when a 5-4 victory at a sold-out Kauffman Stadium evened their series with the Astros at one and saved them from the potential embarrassment of a playoff sweep following last year's World Series run.

View photos Eric Hosmer's sixth-inning single brought the Royals within 4-3. (Tammy Ljungblad/Kansas City Star/Getty Images) More

While Alcides Escobar's seventh-inning leadoff triple and Ben Zobrist's RBI single proved the difference, the game turned an inning earlier, when Houston manager A.J. Hinch went to left-hander Oliver Perez to face Hosmer with a runner on second, one out and a 4-2 lead. Perez is 34 going on infinity, a left-handed reliever funky enough he belongs in Parliament. Perez contorts his body, changes his arm slot, slows down his delivery. When Ollie Perez faces a left-handed hitter, the results tend to run the gamut of bad-worse-Bill Bergen. In Game 1, Hosmer waved at a Perez fastball and popped out on a slider the next pitch.

This was modern baseball personified: an effective starter yanked before he could finish the sixth inning and a manager giddy to play platoon matchups the rest of the way because depth allowed him to. Hosmer is arguably the Royals' best hitter, his swing the purest and packing the most power, and opponents will fight for every advantage. So in came Perez, against whom left-handers hit .194/.242/.290 this season.

Particularly potent is his slider, an 80- or 81-mph bender that feasts on the low-and-outside corner to left-handed hitters. If a Perez slider doesn't land there, he missed the pitch. Because left-handers can't hit it. In 61 at-bats this season that end on sliders, left-handers are hitting .098 and slugging .115 against Perez. They've managed five singles and one double. And because Perez snuck a fastball by him in Game 1, Hosmer was sitting on one, ready to swing no matter where the pitch went. It spun outside badly. Hosmer swung anyway.

"I'm on second," said Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain, the baserunner at the time, "looking at him, thinking, 'Man, that's filthy.' He's featuring some good stuff."

Perez went back to the slider and induced an even uglier swing. Strike two. This season, when Perez gets to an 0-2 count and throws a slider, hitters are 1 for 15 with 12 strikeouts. Hosmer, in such situations, is 0 for 5 with four strikeouts. Into protect mode he went, wanting simply to get a piece of the ball with his bat, willing to look decidedly uncool in doing so.

View photos Left-handed batters are hitting .194 against Oliver Perez this season. (AP) More

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