Rangers Lose To Royals
{fshare id=5454}
ARLINGTON, Texas — Baseball teams win a lot of games playing the way the Kansas City Royals are right now.
Good pitching and defense and an offense that sustains rallies and scores runs.
That’s the formula Kansas City has used to win 24 of the last 30 games and take command of the American League Central.
Right-hander Jeremy Guthrie won for the fifth time in his last six starts and center fielder Jarrod Dyson matched a career high with three RBIs in the Royals’ 6-3 victory over the Texas Rangers on Saturday night.
Kansas City (72-56) increased its lead over Detroit in the Central to 3 1/2 games and is now 51 games above .500 this season when scoring four runs or more.
“We’re playing very consistently,” Guthrie said. “It’s been a good month. We’ll take two more of them.”
Guthrie (10-10) limited Texas to one run — designated hitter Shin-Soo Choo’s home run to lead off the first inning — on five hits and a walk in eight innings while striking out two.
Dyson drew a bases-loaded walk to drive in the go-ahead run in the Royals’ three-run fifth inning and accounted for two more runs with a single in the seventh off Rangers left-handed reliever Alex Claudio.
Second baseman Omar Infante had a two-run single in fifth inning. Right fielder Lorenzo Cain was
2-for-3 with walk and two runs scored and left fielder Alex Gordon was 2-for-4, including a home run off Texas right-hander Nick Tepesch.
“We’re putting it all together at the right time,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said. “The majority of the season we struggled to score … but we’ve gotten clutch hits, runners on, taking advantage of mistakes. We have guys hot.
“This is now almost a month. It’s been good to see.”
Tepesch (4-8) registered his worst start in a month, giving up six runs and seven hits in 6 1/3 innings for the Rangers (49-79), who have lost nine of their past 13. He issued three walks in the Royals’ decisive three-run fifth inning.
Tepesch, who entered with a 1.83 ERA in his last three starts (all Texas victories), gave up a home run with two outs in the first inning to Gordon but worked around baserunners in the third and fourth innings.
The Texas offense sputtered. Choo led off the game with a home run, but Texas could muster only four more hits against Guthrie.
Center fielder Leonys Martin had a two-run single in the ninth inning against Royals right-hander Aaron Crow, who secured two straight outs before issuing a walk to right fielder Alex Rios and consecutive hits, including one to Texas third baseman Adrian Beltre.
In his last six starts, Guthrie is 5-1 with a 3.82 ERA. That includes an outing in which he gave up five runs in 5 2/3 inning on July 26. In his last five starts, his ERA is almost a run less at 2.89.
The Royals broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth inning with the help of Tepesch, who issued three walks — including two on four pitches — the last bringing in third baseman Mike Moustakas with the go-ahead run.
Among the Royals’ two hits in the inning was Infante’s two-run single to left center that opened up a three-run lead for Kansas City.
“If he had to take back one thing, it’d be the walk to Dyson,” Texas manager Ron Washington said. “He just didn’t have his best command.
“He needed to make one pitch.”
After giving up Choo’s home run to lead off the Rangers’ half of the first, Guthrie cruised to 12 consecutive outs before surrendering a single to Martin to lead off the fifth inning.
Martin was erased trying to steal second and left fielder Jim Adduci, who broke an 0-for-26 stretch with a single, was left stranded.
“Jeremy was sharp with everything he had tonight,” Yost said. “He was sharp with his command, movement on his pitches.”
