They completed a four-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins with a 2-1 victory as Danny Duffy allowed one run in 6.2 innings to improve to 11-1 with a 2.66 ERA.
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The Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals game on Friday night extended into the wee-hours of Saturday after one of the most weird turn of events.
Lorenzo Cain doubled twice, singled and drove in three runs.
The victory is the eighth straight win for the Royals, who finished the four-game sweep of the Twins to move to 11-2 against their AL Central rival this season. The Royals, of course, have won eight in a row and have gone on a 13-2 tear to climb back into the fringes of the playoff chase. The Dominican Republic native allowed two or fewer earned runs in each of the last five outings and issued a total of five walks in that span. Santana was not quite as strong in his last chance against the Royals on May 24, when he was knocked around for six runs and nine hits in 3 2/3 innings.
Royals: RHP Ian Kennedy has a 0.95 ERA in his first three August starts.
After blowing through the Twins in the first with two popups on six pitches Danny Duffy made a decision to toy with his opponents in the second. Hosmer scored on Alcides Escobar’s ground out to Polanco. “We’ve got a good thing going right now, and we’re winning games and having fun”.
Rockies 11, Cubs 4 • Nolan Arenado broke out of a slump in a big way, hitting two homers and driving in six runs to boost Colorado against visiting Chicago. Third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert snagged Danny Santana’s hard hit grounder and threw out Eduardo Escobar at second base. I doubt an umpire would call a pitch that’s clearly outside the zone a strike, but if it’s close, that call is going the pitcher’s way.
Kelvin Herrera pitched a flawless ninth to log his seventh save in nine chances. Gordon made a sliding catch on a tricky fly ball into shallow left field.
“You know, this a lot better game for us in terms of competing compared to yesterday (a 10-0 loss), but still we have fallen short in terms of taking advantage of opportunities”, Twins manager Paul Molitor said.
Minnesota knotted the score a 1-1 in the third on doubles by Robbie Grossman and Trevor Plouffe.
Indians 3, Blue Jays 2 • Jose Ramirez hit a two-run homer off Brett Cecil in the eighth inning and host Cleveland rallied past Toronto to win the series between teams that began the game as AL division leaders. He grounded out as a pinch hitter in the ninth.
The Royals opened the scoring in the second inning when Hosmer led off with a single and moved to third on a double by Kendrys Morales.
In Seattle, Keon Broxton and Chris Carter homered and Scooter Gennett had an RBI single during a four-run ninth, and Milwaukee snapped a six-game losing streak.
In Anaheim, Albert Pujols had three hits and scored twice on singles by Andrelton Simmons, leading Los Angeles past NY.
The Royals and Twins wrap up their 4 game series Sunday afternoon with Danny Duffy on the mound for the Royals and Ervin Santana makes the start for the Twins. He appeared in two games for the Red Sox this season, giving up seven runs in 2 2/3 innings. Perez homered into the Royals’ bullpen with two out and Gordon homered on a 3-1 pitch, his first multi-homer game since May 18, 2014.
Nolan Arenado’s three-run homer sparked the Colorado Rockies’ seven-run first in a 11-4 rout of Major League Baseball leaders the Chicago Cubs.
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NATIONALS 11, BRAVES 9 Ryan Zimmerman homered among his three hits in his return from the disabled list, and Washington used an eight-run fourth inning to take control before holding on for a victory over host Atlanta.
