Royals bats go silent, lose 2-1 to Tigers

The Royals were nearly shut out for the third time this season as the offense suffered a major course correction in Saturday night's 2-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers.

Edinson Volquez wasn't bad. He wasn't good. Just acceptable, more along the lines of what we should expect from him as the year goes on. He gave up five hits and three walks in six innings, yielding two runs and striking out four. Franklin Morales pitched a scoreless seventh, and Yohan Pino went two innings to give the big arms of the bullpen a night off.

Salvador Perez recorded two hits, Moustakas had one, and Christian Colon singled. They were all singles. It was the total sum of the Royals offense heading into the ninth.

David Price, on the other hand, took advantage of the Royals aggressiveness, living on the edge of the zone and inducing a ton of weak contact. He recorded just three strikeouts but yielded no walks in the complete game effort. It was the Royals Way: Don't strike out, don't walk, swing a lot, see what happens. Presumably to take advantage of the other team's defense, but outside of a minor hiccup there was nothing to take advantage of.

Lorenzo Cain homered in the ninth to avoid the shutout, followed by a swift Eric Hosmer strikeout against the left-handed starter. The bright spot being that Cain has three home runs already this season, quickly approaching the five he hit all of last season.

Kansas City and Detroit conclude their series tomorrow. Jason Vargas (2-1, 5.95) will face off against Anibal Sanchez (1-3, 5.46). Kansas City goes for the set as Detroit looks to make it a split in the four game series.