Royals Beat Rangers 6-3

The season thus far for the Texas Rangers has been a miserable one filled with injuries to some key players such as Prince Fielder and now Yu Darvish. Texas came into today with the anemic record of 49-77, and 27 games back of the first place for last place in the American League West division.

The Rangers got off to a promising start tonight when they got out to an early 1-0 lead on an Alex Rios ground-rule double. From there, Yordano Ventura would cruise allowing just three more hits in his six innings of shutout ball. Ventura struck out six, but walked three batters. In games that Yordano allows three or more walks, he is 2-5 with a 5.33 ERA. In games where he allows two or less walks, Ace is 6-4 with a 2.63 ERA.

Kansas City would come back and score three runs for their young rookie pitcher in the top of the second inning. The scoring started off with a Billy Butler solo shot to left field. Lorenzo Cain then singled in Josh Willingham who was hit by a pitch earlier in the inning, and moved Mike Moustakas to second base. Escobar drove in Moose on a single to give Kansas City their final run of the inning. The Boys in Blue would tack on one more run on a Josh Willingham solo shot to center field.

Francisely Bueno came in to pitch the seventh inning, but only got one out in the sixth inning before Ned Yost was forced to go to Kelvin Herrera when Bueno made a 5-1 game into a 5-3 game. With the pitching tandem of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland, the Rangers stood no chance. The Royals ended up scoring one more run to insure that they would get the victory.

The Tigers lost hilariously to the Twins on Friday night. When the Tigers nearly caught up with the Twins 6-1 lead, Minnesota stepped on the gas for nine runs in the sixth inning, and the Tigers just simply couldn’t keep up. Detroit has fallen into a 2.5 game hole behind Kansas City for the American League Central League lead, and are now a game back of Seattle for the second wildcard spot behind Oakland, who has also fallen off since the trade deadline.

The Royals will look to expand their lead tomorrow night against the struggling Tigers. They will send Jeremy Guthrie (9-10, 4.48 ERA) to battle against Nick Tepesch (4-7, 4.15 ERA.) Tepesch was on the DL due to elbow problems earlier in the season, and with a very average ERA, there should be no reason why Kansas City shouldn’t be able to jump on it. Your first place Kansas City Royals are hot, and look downright unstoppable. Hopefully they can expand their lead to 3.5 (the longest of the season) tomorrow.