Royals Take Three Of Four From Seattle At Kauffman

Last week the Royals split another two game midweek set,this time with the Minnesota Twins at Target Field.The first game went to the Twins by the final of 4-3,and in typical recent Royals fashion,the game went ten innings.The Royals won the second game 10-7 and were in a tie with the Chicago White Sox for 2nd place in the AL Central,before they returned to Kauffman Stadium.Although,instead of having Thursday off for travel as they had the previous week before facing Detroit,they started a four game series against the Seattle Mariners.With momentum on their side,they would go on to win the series,taking three of the four games,as a matter of a fact those were the first three games of the series,and would finish the weekend with a record of 10-5 and sole possession of 2nd place in their division,just one game behind the First Place 11-4 Cleveland Indians that they started a four game set against tonight in Kansas City.

On Thursday 4/14,the game remained scoreless until the bottom of the 3rd inning when Alex Gordon doubled home two runs and Billy Butler singled him home,making it 3-0 Royals,and by the end of the inning,the Royals had also outhit the Mariners 5-1.Wilson Betemit hit a home run in the bottom of the 8th inning before the game was called for rain,giving the Royals the 5-1 victory,and making starter Bruce Chen 2-0 and 4-0 all-time against Seattle.

On Friday 4/15-it was Jackie Robinson Day as game two was being played.Both the Royals and the Mariners each scored a run apiece in the 1st inning.In the Bottom of the 3rd,Billy Butler doubled and Jeff Francoeur hit a two-run blast to make it 3-1 Royals.Francoeur would be the beneficiary of a Mike Aviles double in the bottom of the 5th that brought the score to 5-1 and the Royals had then outhit Seattle 7-1.In the bottom of the 6th,Alcides Escobar singled and stole 2nd base,before he was moved to 3rd on a Melky Cabrera sacrifice fly,and he would later score on a Billy Butler single, and it was 6-1 KC.Seattle added a run in the bottom of the 8th when Luis Rodriguez doubled and was sacrificed to 3rd by Brendan Ryan and brought home on an Ichiro Suzuki single.The Mariners got three more runs in the top of the 9th inning when a single from Michael Saunders scored Jack Cust,a based loaded walk to Justin Smoak scored Adam Kennedy and a force out grounded into by Ichiro Suzuki scored a run,but it was the Royals on top when it was all said and done by the final of 6-5.

On Saturday 4/16,the Royals got a shutout performance from their pitchers,five of those shutout innings were on the arm of Sean O' Sullivan,and Tim Collins,Jeremy Jeffress and Aaron Crow all kept the Mariners quiet,and in addition to continued offensive production,from guys like Butler,Gordon,Aviles,Cabrera and Ka'aihue,they got some help from some Seattle errors,that resulted in a 7-0 final score.

On Sunday 4/17,my wife and I were at the game (game #2 of our 13-game package),and things started well for both teams,with Jeff Francis on the mound for KC and Michael Pineda for Seattle.It was a scoreless game until the bottom of the 5th inning,when we again heard from Jeff Francoeur who had enterd the day tied for 8th in the American League with 18 hits,doubled.He was moved to 3rd on a sac-fly by Wilson Betemit,and scored on yet another sac-fly by Brayan Pena.The Mariners tied the game in the top of the 6th when Ichiro Suzuki doubled,was sacrificed to 3rd by Chone Figgins and scored on a Milton Bradley triple.But,the Royals had received fourteeen consecutive scoreless innings from their pitchers between Saturday's game and this point.Jeff Francis finally left the game in the top of the 7th inning when the Mariners scored twice on singles from Justin Smoak,Miguel Olivo and an RBI double from Brendan Ryan.The Royals managed one more run in the bottom of the 9th,on a Kila Ka'aihue single,a sacrifice ground out by Jeff Francoeur and an RBI single from Wilson Betemit.But this day would go to Seattle as the final in their favor was 3-2.This was also Michael Pineda's first Major League victory.

By John W "Loshman" Losh II