Five Straight Ws: Royals 7, Angels 2

The Royals have the hottest offense in baseball. That sentence would have been unimaginable a few weeks ago. But now that they have the hottest offense in baseball...just look at what’s come as a result.

Kansas City beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 7-2, to kick off a four-game series on Thursday.

Matt Strahm made his first MLB start for the Royals, and he did a fantastic job. Strahm breezed through five innings despite a 70-pitch limit. He needed just 68 pitches to get his 15 outs. The only blemish on his resume was surrendering an unearned, first-inning run.

The Angels led 1-0 before the Royals took over in the top of the second. Alex Gordon swatted a two-out RBI double to right to tie the game at one. Officially, Alcides Escobar scored on an error by Kole Calhoun, but I thin that’s a bad call. He would have scored before Calhoun bobbled the ball on the warning track.

Whit Merrifield added a ground-rule double after that to give Kansas City a 2-1 lead. He was credited with an RBI.

Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon led off the third and fourth frames with solo home runs to center field. The Royals just can’t stop hitting homers. Cain has six of them in his last 12 games, while Gordon, who had 0 just over a week ago, now has three and is really starting to heat up. He finished a triple shy of the cycle, which marked his first three-hit effort of the season. His batting average is up to .195, the highest its been since April 20.

The Angels got a run in the sixth off Scott Alexander to make it 4-2, but the Royals scored three in the seventh to put the game out of reach. Eric Hosmer smashed an RBI double to deep center to score Cain, and after a single by Salvador Perez, Mike Moustakas drove in two more runs with a single to the right side. 7-2, Kansas City.

Strahm’s final line: 5.0 innings, three hits, no earned runs, and three strikeouts. He earned the win, improving him to 2-3 on the year.

Scott Alexander, Joakim Soria, and Travis Wood closed out the last four innings for the Royals.

The last time the Royals didn’t score at least seven runs in a game? Last Friday night. It’s the first time they’ve scored at least seven in five straight games since 1979.

They’ve won five in a row. They’re also 4-0 against the Angels this year.

The Royals are 31-34. It’s the first time they’ve been within three games of .500 since April 22.

Tomorrow: Ian Kennedy, who is 0-6, opposes Jesse Chavez. Just keep on winning.