Royals prey on weak Twins, 10-0

Any worries about the Royals suffering because of their late night antics last night were set to rest as Ian Kennedy, Alex Gordon, and the rest of the Royals stomped all over the Twins in a beautiful romp that ended much more quickly than last night’s game.

Every Royals starter came up with at least one hit, tonight. All but Salvador Perez and Paulo Orlando reached base at least twice. All but Kendrys Morales scored a run. Six of them had extra base hits. Gordon continued his magma-hot stretch with a pair of solo shots and added a ground-rule double before being pulled for Billy Burns in the eighth.

The Twins defense, and in particular Robbie Grossman, continue to be horrible. The Twins were not charged with any errors but Eduardo Escobar threw one past Trevor Plouffe at first, and twice Jorge Polanco was forced to run past Grossman in left field from his short stop position while chasing fly balls. Once he caught it, but another time it turned into a Christian Colon double when Grossman followed Polanco’s whiff by kicking the ball into foul territory.

Still, Hector Santiago pitched plenty poorly enough to do himself in without any help. In his second straight start against the Royals he did even worse than last time. He allowed eight earned runs in only 4 2/3 innings on eleven hits, including a two-run bomb by Salvy and both of Alex’s blasts.

Adalberto Mejia, who was called up today in response to last night’s long game, made his major league debut and was rudely welcomed by the Royals. Not only did he allow two runs on five hits in his 2 1/3 innings, but he had two different balls hit off of him in his first inning of work.

Overshadowed a bit by the Royals offensive outburst was Ian Kennedy’s stellar performance. Last night the Royals were forced to use all of their relievers except for Chris Young in order to win that game. Kennedy pitched eight shut out innings to let the bullpen recover from that performance. Kennedy may have benefited by some borderline calls as the Royals' lead grew, but who can blame the rookie umpire for wanting to go home after last night's marathon? Brian Flynn pitched the ninth, but everyone else should be ready to go tomorrow, if necessary.

The Royals have now won seven games in a row and five straight series. Toronto is beating Cleveland in the bottom of the ninth of their game, so the Royals might be able to make up some ground there. Baltimore was getting demolished by Houston in their game, so the Royals will probably gain in the wild card race, as well.

The Boys in Blue will go for the four-game sweep tomorrow afternoon when Danny Duffy faces off against Twins ace, and former Royal, Ervin Santana.