Billy Butler shines as Kansas City Royals topple Cleveland Indians 5-3 – MLB Update
Kansas City Royals toppled the Cleveland Indians 5-3 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday, September 22 in second game of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Royals will be very pleased with their effort in the first game of the series. After crushing the Indians 6-3 in series opener, they continued their good work in Game 2 to take a decisive 2-0 series lead. Manager Ned Yost will be expecting his men to come
up with another powerful performance in the finale to earn a rare series sweep against Cleveland.
Starting pitcher Will Smith pitched with great control and accuracy as he gave up just two runs in seven sharp innings to grab his sixth win of the season. Striking-out batters at regular intervals, he created all sorts of problems for the Indians’ batting
line-up.
Relief pitchers Aaron Crow and Kelvin Herrera combined to give up just one run in two innings to help Royals hold on to their two run lead.
Alcides Escobar provided Royals with an excellent start as he doubled to deep right in the first inning to score the first run. All Star selection Billy Butler also made his presence felt with an RBI single to right in the first.
"I said last year Billy was a 30-100 RBI guy," Yost said. "He's got some work to do. I think Billy is capable of being a huge run producer in the American League, that guy that's capable of having 120, 130 RBIs every year.”
Yost added, "He just keeps getting better and better. He hit a double off (Ubaldo) Jimenez, it was a curveball where he started and stopped and blasted it."
"There's always other years," Butler said. "I'm going to continue to drive the ball. I feel like I'm going to continue to get stronger and better."
Eric Hosmer grounded into fielder’s choice to third and Brayan Pena hit a sacrifice fly to left in the fifth to stretch Royals’ lead to 4-2. Indians, on the other hand, looked very rusty, as they missed out on several scoring opportunities.
Tags: