The Cleveland Guardians have the best bullpen in baseball, but Kansas City’s relievers were instrumental in a 4-3 win on Thursday afternoon.

Cleveland looked like they were on their way with a 3-1 lead after a few sloppy defensive innings from both teams. But the Guardians failed to score after the fourth inning.

Kansas City scored in the first when Vinny Pasquantino doubled to right field to score Maikel Garcia.

Cleveland tied the game in the bottom of the first when Josh Naylor grounded out to score Steven Kwan.

Each team made an error in the first inning, and the Royals failed to turn a double play when Garrett Hampson failed to cover second base. Well, he is listed as a center fielder.

Jose Ramirez started driving in runs, as usual. He smashed his 17th home run of the year in the third and singled to score Kwan in the fourth to put Cleveland on top 3-1.

Ramirez leads the major leagues with 60 RBI. He passed Manny Ramirez on Cleveland’s all-time RBI list and moved into eighth place with 806 RBI.

LIGHTS-OUT BULLPEN

Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro pulled starter Brady Singer and replaced him with Will Smith (no, not that one … or that one). He and four other Royals didn’t even give up a hit for the rest of the game.

The Royals tied the game at 3-3 in the sixth on an RBI double by Hunter Renfroe and a run-scoring grounder by center fielder Kyle Isbel.

In the eighth inning, Isbel swatted a single to right field to score Adam Frazier with the winning run off Guardians reliever Hunter Gaddis (3-2).

Tanner Bibee started for Cleveland and gave up only two earned runs in five innings while striking out seven.

Kansas City reduced Cleveland’s lead in the American League Central Division to four games. Cleveland has the third-best record in the major leagues at 40-21.

After the loss, the Guardians hopped on a flight to Miami. They will begin a three-game series against the Marlins.  In a battle of lefties, Logan Allen (6-3) will start for Cleveland against Ryan Weathers (3-5).