Isaac Mattson's back-to-back tough outings belie a much stronger season

Isaac Mattson was the man on the mound when Kansas City won in walk-off fashion Tuesday night, with Nick Loftin delivering the winning RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning.

But it wasn’t all on Mattson, inserted into the game in a tough spot in relief of Dennis Santana, who departed with one out and runners on first and third.

Ultimately, Mattson delivered just two pitches to Loftin before letting up the winner, whereas Santana was charged with the run and loss.

Unfortunately for Mattson, Wednesday evening was a different story with a similar ending.

Entering a tie game in the bottom of the eighth inning at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City’s Salvador Perez jacked the first pitch he saw from the 29-year-old Pirates righty, crushing a 428-foot solo homer that turned out to be the difference in the game.

That home run was Kansas City’s ninth and final of the three-game series after managing only 15 through 44 home games entering Monday.

Salvador Perez has hit 870 feet worth of home runs tonight ????

His second of the night gives the @Royals the late lead! pic.twitter.com/oPXXviPcse

— MLB (@MLB) July 10, 2025

The Captain will be in Cooperstown someday. 15 home runs away from 300. 32 home runs away from tying George Brett.

Salvador Perez. Iconic. ????pic.twitter.com/t6Iw0AU2CC

— Andrew Curtis (@AndrewCurtis24) July 10, 2025

Absolutely destroyed. pic.twitter.com/EevePIph4a

— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) July 10, 2025

The Royals won 4-3 for the second night in a row, sweeping the Pirates and handing them their sixth straight loss.

“They hit the ball really well. Our pitching has been really good and I think did a good job this series to give us a chance to win,” manager Don Kelly said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “Credit to (the Royals). They hit a lot of home runs and drove the ball out of the park in a tough place to hit, too.”

In addition to the homer the Royals hit off Mattson, Kansas City went yard in the series on Bailey Falter (2), Mitch Keller (2), Andrew Heaney (1), Chase Shugart (2) and Genesis Cabrera (1).

Though Monday’s game got off the rails, with the Royals winning 9-3, Kelly, on the whole, was pleased with how his club pitched in Kansas City.

Suffice it to say, he wasn’t interested in assigning the blame for Wednesday’s loss on Mattson, or any of his pitchers, for that matter, despite the staggering amount of Royals homers in the series.

“Sometimes it gets magnified, too, when you make mistakes,” Kelly said. “Our pitching has been so good, and we just need to find a way to score some runs because with pitching, there’s going to be mistakes at times. (Kansas City) hit them out of the park there, but we’ve got to find ways to pick them up offensively and get the win.”

As for Mattson (2-1, 1.89 ERA), on the heels of back-to-back tough outings, he finds himself navigating through the most significant patch of adversity in his first year with the Pirates.

Before the Royals series, Mattson last allowed an earned run June 19.

His performance during the Kansas City series aside, Mattson’s body of work has been strong.

Opposing hitters are still batting only .152 against him, and he has struck out 21 compared to seven walks.

Over 16 games with the Pirates, Mattson has a 0.89 WHIP and has allowed four earned runs in 19 innings.

“Mattson has been tremendous for us,” Kelly said.

Before finding some traction in the Pirates organization, leading to his impressive debut campaign with the club, Mattson dealt with his fair share of professional struggles and setbacks.

Mattson, notably, was out of MLB for a time, pitching for the independent Washington Wild Things and Southern Maryland Blue Crabs in 2022 and 2023 while maintaining hope another big-league opportunity would come.

Through it all, Mattson kept believing, a mindset he is likely to lean into moving forward when things might not go his way.

“Definitely I’ve had people, especially in this organization, that have believed in me from the beginning,” Mattson told TribLive earlier in July. “Having that belief and that confidence helped me to continue to build. Obviously, there’s still work that needs to be done on a day-in, day-out basis, but knowing that I’ve got a team that believes in me and it’s not just me doing it out there on my own, it’s nine of us out there, that means a lot. That’s definitely been a big piece of it.

“Just knowing that I’m here, that I belong here and I can continue to help this team win baseball games, that’s definitely something that I can continue to build off of and continue to contribute.”