Bust out the brooms: Opportunistic Royals complete Oaktown sweep

By foxsports
Published

The Royals left Oakland without any fines or suspensions, just a sweep.

In the rematch of a testy April series, Kansas City beat the Athletics three times, capped by a 5-3 win Sunday afternoon. The Royals lead the American League Central by 5 1/2 games over Minnesota. It is the largest division lead for Kansas City since July 21, 2003.

Kansas City capitalized on a costly error by Max Muncy, pushing across three runs in the sixth inning Sunday. Muncy's throwing error allowed Mike Moustakas to score and extended the Kansas City rally that saw Alex Rios and Omar Infante drive in runs as well.

Oakland committed two errors, adding to its major league-leading 75 errors this season.

3 UP

• Guthrie's strikeouts. Right-hander Jeremy Guthrie struck out a season-high seven batters, including the 1,000th strikeout of his career. It was the first time Guthrie had struck out seven since Aug. 17 of last season, and he has never had more than three seven-plus-strikeout games in a season.

Guthrie became the second Royals pitcher to reach 1,000 strikeouts this weekend, joining Edinson Volquez. Guthrie threw 103 pitches across six innings, allowing seven hits and one walk.

• Infante keeps rolling. Second baseman Infante continued his recent hot streak at the plate by driving in a run with a sixth-inning single. He went 1 for 4 and is now slashing .360/.360/.460 since June 15, when he took over first-place in All-Star balloting of AL second basemen.

• Perez pops another. Catcher Salvador Perez blasted a two-run home run in the eighth inning, the 500th hit of his career. With Lorenzo Cain on first base, Perez launched an Edward Mujica pitch beyond the left-field wall. It was his 12th homer of the season and first since June 20.

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• Gordon's defense. Gold Glove left fielder Alex Gordon made a series of uncharacteristic defensive misplays Sunday afternoon. In the third inning, Gordon and Alcides Escobar allowed Josh Reddick's soft flyball to land, driving in Oakland's second run of the day. Four innings later, Gordon misjudged Billy Burns' line drive, resulting in a one-out double.

In the eighth, he dropped the ball while transferring it from his glove to his hand after a sacrifice fly. Oakland challenged the play, but the out stood.

• Cain's hamstring. Cain did not start Sunday's game, a precaution to rest a tweaked hamstring. He pinch hit for designated hitter Eric Hosmer in the eighth inning and singled. Jarrod Dyson started in center field.

It was the third time in the last six games Cain didn't start. He was granted a normal off day Monday in Seattle before sitting Wednesday and Sunday with the slight hamstring injury, first sustained running down a flyball Tuesday and reaggravated stealing a base Saturday.

• Infield fingers. Hosmer was penciled in to start at first base but was swapped with Kendrys Morales to designated hitter because of a sprained left ring finger. It was Hosmer's first start of the year at DH. He was lifted in the eighth inning for Cain.

Escobar left the game in the bottom of the eighth inning because of a split nail bed on his right index finger suffered an inning earlier. In the seventh, Escobar fielded a Sam Fuld grounder that caught part of his throwing hand. Trainer Nick Kenney checked on Escobar, who remained in the game for one inning.

You can follow Matthew DeFranks on Twitter at @MDeFranks or email him at matthew.defranks@gmail.com.