So Duffy was, at times, missing spots and counting on his defense to make plays behind him.
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Alex Gordon hit a pair of home runs and doubled while Ian Kennedy pitched eight scoreless innings as the Kansas City Royals routed the Minnesota Twins 10-0 on Saturday night. Add that to the fact that Duffy was on the mound; when you’re facing a top-of-the-line pitcher, you won’t have a lot of scoring opportunities, so you push your luck on the base paths. The eight-game winning streak is the longest since the Sung-Woo Streak in 2014. Kansas City pitchers are allowing an average of 1.7 runs during the winning streak as the Royals have crawled three games over.500 and within 4 1/2 games of the Baltimore Orioles for the second AL wild card. In 6 2/3 innings against the Twins, he allowed just one earned run, lowering his season ERA from 2.73 to 2.66. Duffy lowered his ERA to 2.66, which ranks second in the American League.
“We’ve got everything going for us-starting pitching, the bullpen has been spectacular, our defense has been good and we’re starting to swing the bats well”, manager Ned Yost said after K.C. pounded the Twins 10-0 on Saturday, per MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan and Rhett Bollinger. They’ve also played 46 one-run games, the most in the majors (the Mariners are 23-23 in those games).
Kelvin Herrera pitched a ideal ninth to log his seventh save in nine chances.
Kansas City scored a run on a groundout in the second before Trevor Plouffe’s RBI double tied the game at 1-1 in the third. Santana threw seven scoreless innings Tuesday at Atlanta, holding the Braves to four hits, while walking two and striking out six. “You just have to keep the ball down for the most part and then elevate when you need to”.
In his second game since returning from the disabled list, Cespedes hit solo homer off Giants starter Matt Moore in the third inning and another off reliever Jake Peavy in the seventh, highlighting a 13-hit Mets attack. In the top of the frame, the Twins loaded the bases with no outs against Danny Duffy, but failed to score a run.
Duffy recovered by striking out Eddie Rosario.
The Kansas City Royals were the worst team in the majors in July, when they went 7-19 and were outscored by 47 runs.
The Royals forged ahead in bottom of the inning, which Hosmer opened by dumping a single into shallow left. Dozier lined a single to left with one out and Centeno stopped at third.
Duffy is going to be a member of the 2017 free agent class, along with guys like Lorenzo Cain, Wade Davis, Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer, and Mike Moustakas, and at one point was an after thought with the rest of these names.
Meanwhile, both Arizona runs were unearned, coming after Richard threw two potential double-play comebackers into center field for errors in the fifth and sixth innings. The Twins attack consisted of four singles with Eduardo Escobar going 2-3. He is allowing significantly fewer hits (7.2 H/9) than he did a year ago (9.0 H/9) when he posted an underwhelming 4.08 ERA, but that is only one component of his present success.
In the fourth, Minnesota put runners on the corners with one out, but Duffy struck out Santana and got Brian Dozier to fly to right to end the threat. Cain reached because Twins shortstop Jorge Polanco booted a hard grounder that was ruled a hit. He had not permitted more than seven hits in any of his first 18 starts.
A six legged icon to fans and players, the rally mantis is 4-1 but to entomologists, insects mean so much to us.
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NOTES: The Twins called up RHP Pat Light from Triple-A Rochester.
