Royals throw Cubs for a loss
Kansas City certainly is enjoying the Cubs’ three-game visit this weekend, and not only because the Royals sold out Kauffman Stadium on Saturday night for just the second time this season — the first since Opening Day.
At the rate the Cubs are getting thrown out on the bases, the Royals could run away with the league lead in outfield assists.
Royals left fielder Alex Gordon notched the latest one — his second in two nights and his American League best 12th this year — when Reed Johnson tried to score on Jeff Baker’s single in the third inning.
That came a night after the Cubs ran into four outs on the bases. While the Cubs got away with it in a 6-4 victory in the series opener, the Royals evened the series Saturday, winning 3-2.
Kansas City broke a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning, scoring the winning run when Friday’s goat Chris Getz came through with an infield single off Jeff Samardzija’s bare hand to cap a rally fueled by 2 walks, a passed ball and no balls hit out of the infield.
Royals closer Joakim Soria then struck out the side in the ninth.
Cubs manager Mike Quade said told reporters before the game he likes to see his team run the bases aggressively.
“You want to make good decisions,” Quade said to Cubs.com. “I’d rather start with us thinking aggressive.”
That sellout crowd of 38,744 turned out to see two teams a combined 27 games under .500 with near identical records. The Royals (32-45) are now a notch better than the Cubs (31-45) after snapping their six-game losing streak.
That same Kauffman Stadium will host next year’s All-Star Game. With the Royals’ youth movement featuring some of Baseball America’s best prospects such as first baseman Eric Hosmer, third baseman Mike Moustakas and Saturday’s starting pitcher Danny Duffy (7 innings, 2 runs, 1 walk) in full effect, Kansas City has turned to the players it hopes will develop into future all-stars.
Who will be representing the Cubs in that 2012 midsummer classic? Carlos Marmol? Starlin Castro? Prince Fielder? Albert Pujols?
Castro certainly is stating his case. A night after passing the 100-hit mark in just his 75th game, Castro got started on his next 100 and a 200-hit season with a single in the third inning, extending his career-best hitting streak to nine games.
That was 1 of 3 hits in the third inning, yet the Cubs failed to score when Johnson was thrown out at the plate on Baker’s one-out single. Aramis Ramirez followed with a flyball to center that could have scored Johnson.
The Royals broke a scoreless tie with 2 runs in the fifth off Carlos Zambrano. The Cubs tied the game at 2-2 in the sixth on back-to-back homers by Ramirez — on his 33rd birthday — and Geovany Soto.
It wasn’t enough despite a second straight solid start from Zambrano (7 innings, 8 hits, 2 runs) following his win Monday over the White Sox.
“When we look at this club, we didn’t think we had an offensive juggernaut, but we thought we had enough pieces in place, and we were going to be able to create enough to get to that 5 (runs),” Quade told Keith Moreland on the WGN radio pregame.
“We know we have the bullpen and we believe now we have the starting pitching to back that up.”