Rangers Spit Series With Royals
{fshare id=6259}
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Kansas City Royals are hard to beat this season.
The Royals fended off the Texas Rangers 6-3 Thursday to salvage a split of their four-game series and improve to 6-2-2 in series this year.
As has been the case throughout the season, the Royals used a potent offense, pounding out 14 hits against the Rangers while getting just enough pitching from right-hander Jeremy Guthrie.
First baseman Eric Hosmer extended his hitting streak to 11 games and delivered the big blow, a two-run homer in the top of the sixth inning after the Rangers had cut Kansas City’s lead to one.
Hosmer and shortstop Alcides Escobar each had three hits and combined for five RBIs, with Escobar matching his season high with three. Not losing a series has been something the Royals have strived for.
“It’s big we never want to come and lose a series, especially a four-game series like that,” said Hosmer, who raised his average to .333. “We came off a big divisional win in Detroit; and, coming here, we wanted to make sure we evened it out before we left. So it’s a big win for us.”
The Royals jumped on Texas starter Ross Detwiler for a run in the first on an
RBI groundout from left fielder Alex Gordon. Kansas City added two more runs in the fourth on a single from Escobar.
Detwiler (0-5) struggled through five innings, allowing nine hits and three runs while throwing 108 pitches.
“You have the ball up and this is a good hitting team,” Detwiler said. “They just hit the ball the other way. They didn’t try to do too much. I’ve been leaving a lot of fastballs up, especially in bad counts.”
Detwiler had a good outing in Houston in the team’s last road trip but hasn’t been able to build off that in his last two starts. Texas manager Jeff Banister hasn’t lost confidence in him.
“He couldn’t get the outs when he needed to in certain situations,” Banister said. “I still believe he has good stuff. I still think it’s about the same as what we’ve seen.”
The beneficiary of the offense was Kansas City right-hander Jeremy Guthrie, who allowed two runs in five innings and then turned the game over to the Kansas City bullpen. Guthrie has won his last two starts and dropped his ERA from 6.52 to 5.44, the lowest it has been since his first start of the season.
He knew Thursday he had to be careful against a Texas team that had won seven of its last 10 games.
“You’ve got to pitch them in, because they all swing the bat very well away from them, got to be able to stay down and try to keep them off balance the best you can,” Guthrie said. “I feel like I did that consistently until the fifth, and just got a couple of sloppy pitches, especially a curveball to (Carlos) Corporan and missed the pitch to (Delino) DeShields. After that, I made some big pitches. … I thought I executed pretty well.”
Texas scored twice off Guthrie in the fifth, on a single to right-center from DeShields and on a single to right from designated hitter Prince Fielder.
The Rangers had seven hits, with right fielder Shin-Soo Choo accounting for three while extending his hitting streak to 14. It’s the longest in the American League this season.
