Kansas City Royals defeat Boston Red Sox 9-4 – MLB Update
Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer helped the Kansas City Royals to beat the Boston Red Sox by 9-4 on Saturday, August 20 at Kauffman Stadium.
Kansas City Royals’ rookies drove in two runs each to edge their way past the Boston Red Sox.
The win came in the face of the unplayable knuckleballer of the Red Sox starter Tim Wakefield. Although he pitched some of the best knuckleballs, the eighth-run sixth inning brought a catastrophe for the Red Sox.
"A lot of these kids had never even seen a knuckleball before, so the third time around might have made a difference," Royals’ manager Ned Yost said. "He would leave a couple up, but the majority were really dancing good and really dive bombing once it got
into the strike zone.”
With having no previous experience to face such pitches, Hosmer found it difficult to play, but he managed to execute them at the end. "It was different," Hosmer said of facing Wakefield's knuckleball. "It seems like every pitch is moving some way different.
Some are dropping and some are staying up. You've got to tell yourself don't overswing, nice and easy and take it the other way.”
The Red Sox had won the previous two games with less difficulty. But here they were confronted with an unlikely challenge that came with the resurgence of the Kansas City Royals offence.
Marco Scutaro scored the first run for the Red Sox in the third while Felipe Paulino was pitching. The score was soon levelled by Billy Butler’s double to right. But the Red Sox offence sparked in the fourth inning as Carl Crawford and Darnell McDonald scored
a single each to make it 3-1 for the Red Sox.
Ryan Lavarnway made it 4-1 for the Red Sox by the end of the sixth inning to make it a strong case for the Red Sox victory. But that did not materialize. The sixth inning brought about a disaster for the Red Sox Tim Wakefield and denied him his 200th
win.
Jeff Francoeur first had a single followed by Mike Moustakas double to deep right, making it 4-3 for the Royals. Chris Getz singled to right to level the score while Alex Gordon had a two-run double with a subsequent single of Melky Cabrera that helped the
Royals make it 7-4.
Before Wakefield could settle, Eric Hosmer drove two runs to completely shatter the dreams of the Red Sox to remain in the game. With a 9-4 lead, Blake Wood pitched a shut-out seventh as Tim Collins went for a 1-hit eighth to maintain the ascendancy of the
team in the game.
The closer Greg Holland pitched a shut-out ninth to win a fascinating 9-4 victory for the Kansas City Royals, bringing back the team into four-game series whose last game will be played on Sunday.
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