Kansas City Royals shutout Oakland Athletics 2-0 in finale – MLB Update
Kansas City Royals shutout Oakland Athletics 2-0 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Sunday, June 3 in the decisive finale of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Considering their masterful performance in second game, the A’s were the favourites to win the series. However, the Royals handled pressure absolutely brilliantly to prevail in a nail biting contest.
Eric Hosmer made the most of scoring opportunities at a time when runs were extremely hard to come by. His home run to centre in the second inning played a huge part in deciding the outcome of the clash.
Alex Gordon and Brayan Pena combined to make a lovely play, preserving a shutout for starting pitcher Vin Mazzaro, who pitched six solid innings. Mazzaro who was acquired from Athletics in 2010, gave up just four singles and three walks while striking out
three as he sent Oakland to their tenth loss in eleven games.
Since the start of the season, the offence has remained the main concern for Athletics, who average just .209. They have been shutout in three of their last four games and it will be interesting to see if they can turn things around before the All Star Break.
"It was just a reaction play," Gordon said. "I thought it was in the stands when he hit it. It kind of crossed my mind should I catch it or let it drop. It was just one of those bang-bang plays. I caught it, bobbled it and just tried to chuck it over (Rosales')
head a little bit. I put it right there. It was definitely a good time of the game for that to happen. It gave us some momentum."
"I thought that was a phenomenal play," Royals manager Ned Yost said.
Royals, on the other hand, continued to show signs of improvement and they dominated their opponents in almost all departments of the game on Sunday’s evening. With their win against Oakland, they improved their record to 23-32 and it will be exciting to
see if they can get past the .500 win percentage mark in June 2012.
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