Kansas City Royals annihilate Tampa Bay Rays 10-1 – MLB news
Kansas City Royals continued their excellent winning streak as they secured a thumping 10-1 win against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field at St. Petersburg, Florida on Thursday, June 13 in the opening game of their four match series of the 2013 Major
League Baseball regular season.
Rays’ Manager Joe Maddon will be extremely disappointed after his side took another embarrassing defeat in front of their home crown. Rays were outclassed by the American League East Division leaders Boston Red Sox in their previous series and they showed
no signs of improvement on Thursday to take a painful loss in the opener.
Royals, on the other hand, will be feeling confident about their game play. Without a shadow of a doubt, the Royals have done a great job to pick themselves up. With their win, the Royals improved their record to 31-33 and it will be interesting to see if
they can keep up the good work to replace the Detroit Tigers at the top of the American League Central Division standings table.
“When they came into our place, I had a good series there,” Elliot Johnson said. “I wasn't really playing that well, and Ned (Yost) gave me some opportunities to play against them. I picked it up and today played well again. It's good to get them anyway
you can, but it feels good to get them against them, of course. (Former Rays pitcher James) Shields said the same thing; he wishes he could pitch here.”
“It's hard to describe the first time back,” he said. “I wish everyone would get a chance to understand what it's like.”
Royals’ starting pitcher Ervin Santana, who was brought into the side as a key offseason move, produced another great performance as he allowed just five hits and one run in seven plus innings for his fifth win of the year. Santana struck out batters at
regular intervals to play a key role in deciding the outcome of the clash. Relief pitcher JC Gutierrez pitched 1.1 scoreless innings of relief to hold off the Rays.
Alex Gordon, Alcides Escobar and Salvador Perez made useful contributions with the bat.
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