Royals Blow Out Red Sox, 10-4, As Bullpen Falters Again
BOSTON -- The surging Kansas City Royals are getting serious about this repeating thing.
No team has won the World Series two consecutive years since the New York Yankees did it in 1999 and 2000. But the 2015 champion Royals, seven games under .500 entering play on Aug. 6, are right back in the picture.
And they are getting contributions from up and down the roster.
"If you're going to have any kind of sustained winning streak, it's got to be everybody," manager Ned Yost said after his team's eight-run inning led to a 10-4 win over the Boston Red Sox in the rubber game of the three-game series Sunday night. "It's got to be a different guy every night."
Raul Mondesi's three-run triple highlighted the Royals' biggest inning in three years, and left-hander Matt Strahm pitched 2 2/3 innings of no-hit ball for the win.
Both are rookies.
The win, Kansas City's 13th in the past 15 games and 17th in 21, kept the Royals within three games of an American League wild-card spot.
Kansas City (68-62) is 5 1/2 games behind the first-place Cleveland Indians in the AL Central.
"We never quit or put our heads down," Mondesi said. "Everybody was playing hard, and that's what happens.
"I was just happy to help. And then the rest of the team kept playing."
Salvador Perez hit his third homer in two games, his 20th of the season, in the second inning, and Kendrys Morales had three hits for the Royals, who rebounded from a 4-2 deficit after Yordano Ventura failed to get through five innings.
"Ventura just never really got in his groove," Yost said. "He just was kind of fighting himself all night long."
An error by center fielder Paulo Orlando on Sandy Leon's long fly ball keyed Boston's three-run fifth, and Yost pulled Ventura for Strahm, a lefty, with David Ortiz coming up. Strahm got Ortiz to hit into the Royals' fourth double play in five innings, and the Kansas City offense struck in the sixth.
Seven consecutive Royals reached base in the sixth. The rally chased both losing starter Eduardo Rodriguez (2-6) and reliever Matt Barnes, who faced five batters and retired none.
"As hot as they are and the momentum they've been able to create, it was a tough, tough sixth inning, obviously, when you put eight runs up on the board," Boston manager John Farrell said.
The loss was the fourth in five games for the Red Sox, who fell two games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East. Boston (72-58) is a game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles for the first AL wild card.
Rodriguez, making his first start since leaving his Aug. 16 outing at Baltimore due to hamstring rightness, was in front before the Royals rang up their biggest inning since Aug. 5, 2013.
"I thought Eddie came out and was trying to establish his release point," Farrell said. "He was a little erratic at times, in the middle of the plate, particularly to Perez, first-pitch fastball to get them up on the board. Then he settled in -- innings three through five."
Rodriguez gave up five runs on four hits and four walks in 5 1/3 innings. Ventura permitted four runs (three earned) on seven hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings.
Ortiz hit his 31st homer of the season, tying Jimmie Foxx for 18th place on the all-time list with 534, and Xander Bogaerts (16-game hitting streak against Kansas City) had a two-run single in a three-run fifth inning for Boston.
It was Ortiz's 49th extra-base hit at Fenway this season. In the past four years, only one player -- the Toronto Blue Jays' Josh Donaldson last year -- had more extra base hits at home in a season. Donaldson had 50, and Ortiz has five weeks left to top that mark.
NOTES: 2B Dustin Pedroia, who had a streak of 12 straight hits -- one shy of matching the major league record, snapped in his final at-bat Saturday, was out of the Boston lineup attending a family memorial service. ... Boston's RHP Rick Porcello, 12-0 at home this season and trying to become the first Red Sox pitcher in 70 years to start a season 13-0 at home), faces RHP Matt Andriese in the Monday night series opener with Tampa Bay. The pair matched up last Wednesday in St. Petersburg. Neither Andriese nor Porcello, 3-0 against the Rays this season, got a decision in the Rays' win. ... The Royals send RHP Dillon Gee to the mound Monday in the opener of a three-game home series against the New York Yankees. ... The Red Sox honored New England Olympians Tessa Gobbo, Elle Logan, Gevvie Stone (all rowing), Abbey D'Agostino (track, 5,000) Mike Hixon (diving) and Kayla Harrison (judo) before the game.
