Jeff Francis hands 7-3 victory to Kansas City Royals against Los Angeles Angels – MLB Update
Jeff Francis put in a good performance and succeeded in pitching seven effective innings to give Kansas City Royals a 7-3 win over Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday, May 31 at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City.
The victory came only a night after Royals lost by 10-3 to the Angels.
Francis, who seemed in disarray for the starting two innings throwing 35 pitches and allowing two runs and four hits, managed to get it together in the later innings. "We capitalized on a mistake the other team made and turned the game into our favour. It
was up to me to go and shut it down. Fortunately, I was able to do that."
Allowing four hits, the first inning proved costly for Francis. It was Alberto Callaspo who singled to left to give the first run to Los Angeles. Mark Trumbo’s single to centre enabled Izturis to score the second run for the Angels.
Francis did not look behind. While he was throwing tremendous innings, the Royals’ offence opened the floodgate of runs in the third inning.
However, had it not been for Francis’ pitching brilliance, the Royals might have encountered enormous difficulties. "Francis went out and struggled through the first, gave up two runs," Royals’ manager Ned Yost said. "He really danced in and out of problems
in the second and third. We scored the five runs and he settled down big time.”
A total of no less than five-run third inning proved a catalyst of change for the team which was trailing by 2-0. Alex Gordon, Melky Cabrera and Billy Butler scored a single each while Eric Hosmer drove in a two-run homer to make it 5-3 for the Royals.
Jeff kept his consistency and pounded the Angels’ defence, disallowing any run. Jeff Francoeur scored the sixth run for the Royals in the fifth inning with single to centre. Joel Pineiro, by then, had allowed six runs which demanded a change of guard.
Hisanori Takahashi replaced him, this time it was Francoeur who hit a sacrifice fly to left to pile up the lead to 7-3. Francis remained the dominant of all pitchers.
When Blake Wood was called in to pitch, he expectedly threw two consecutive shut-out innings to give his team an eagerly awaited 7-3 win, keeping the series open for both teams to compete and win.
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