The Kansas City Royals had a chance to do something on Sunday they had never done before; sweep a four game series at home from the Cleveland Indians.
History will have to wait.
The Indians used a four-run fifth, and two home runs from Carlos Santana, to blast the Royals 10-3 at Kauffman Stadium. Danny Salazar shook off an early deficit to pitch six innings and record his third win of the season. Meanwhile, Bruce Chen cruised through the first four frames before that disastrous fifth. He takes the loss and is now 2-3 on the year. The loss snapped the Royals five game winning streak, and their lead over third place Cleveland is now just a game and a half in the AL Central division.
Kansas City (53-51) tallied single runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings…Jarrod Dyson hit the third of three straight singles to score Billy Butler for a 1-0 lead, and then Alex Gordon added a sacrifice fly in the next frame to increase the lead to 2-0. Cleveland (52-53) halved the deficit in the fourth on a Yan Gomes RBI single. The wheels came off in the fifth when the Tribe sent eight men to the plate, and scored four of them; two on Santana’s first homer of the contest. Ryan Raburn cleared the fence with a solo shot in the sixth to put Cleveland up 6-2.
But in the bottom half of the inning, Billy Butler doubled down the line to score Alex Gordon to make it a 6-3 game, and after Saturday’s comeback, the Royals faithful were hoping for some more late inning heroics. But Cleveland had other ideas. Their bullpen kept the Royals bats silent, and they got back-to-back home runs from Santana and Gomes in the ninth to secure the victory.
The Royals are off on Monday before welcoming in the Minnesota Twins for a three game set beginning Tuesday night at 7:10pm. Coverage on KMAN begins at 6:30pm.
