“It seemed like not one thing went right”, Shoemaker said in the second. Starting pitcher Johnny Cueto allowed eight hits and a run while striking out four over 8.0 innings to get the win to move his record to 2-1 since moving to KC.
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He is hitting. 367 with seven RBIs in his last eight games and is 7 for 18 with three home runs against Los Angeles this season.
The Royals mustered just one hit off Weaver (4-9) until the sixth, when Ben Zobrist led off with a double to right.
Pujols ended a season-high 14-game streak without a homer in the second inning for Los Angeles – his 31st of the season, and his first hit in 10 at-bats this series.
“A tough hop, nothing I could do”, Pujols said of his mistake.
Holland earned his 26th save after a scoreless inning apiece from Ryan Madson and Kelvin Herrera, finishing off a solid bounce-back performance by the normally staunch Royals bullpen.
The bullpen is back! The Angels have lost 12 straight games when scoring three or less runs. “We’re a very confident group”. We just have to execute.
Meanwhile, the Angels are on their own fury road, but with no Mad Max or Imperator Furiosa to save them.
The victory snapped the Angels’ nine-game dropping streak away from residence.
Danny Duffy, despite hitting three batters, held L.A.in check leaving six runners on base. Taylor Featherston replaced him. Calhoun was plunked in the fifth. So when the All-Star catcher got the go-ahead to return to the lineup, he decided to prove – twice – that he was just fine. “I couldn’t put the ball where I wanted to”. “I get down in the hole and I feel like I’m defending the strike zone”.
But on Monday night in Chicago, Shoemaker gave up three homers and seven runs. In his second start since missing a month with a hip problem, the soft-tossing right-hander beguiled the Royals with a fastball that never eclipsed 85 miles per hour and off-speed stuff that frequently dipped into the 60s.
Though the Angels have won six times in the last 20 contests, they have a two-game lead for the AL’s second wild-card spot and are 1 1/2 behind first-place Houston in the West. Los Angeles last won consecutive road contests during a five-game winning stretch July 3-8.
In between the two hits from Perez, Jarrod Dyson hit a two-run single, Eric Hosmer ripped an RBI single and Mike Moustakas plated a run with a groundout. The only Royals player that didn’t reach base was Escobar. He has a 1.53 ERA in 11 games against Kansas City – his lowest ERA against any opponent he’s faced more than twice – but he’ll be facing a couple of Royals who are locked in at the plate.
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He is not a patient man. Salvador Perez has proved this in five years as a major-leaguer. A sore left wrist confined him to the bench.
