Kansas City Royals upset Texas Rangers 3-1 in opener – MLB Update
Kansas City Royals upset Texas Rangers with a 3-1 win at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas on Monday, May 14 in the opening game of their four match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
The American League West Leaders, Texas Rangers will be of course slightly disappointed with the outcome of the clash but credit must be given to Kansas City’s starting pitcher for the way he performed on the mound. For the Rangers, the only run scored
came in the fourth inning with Nelson Cruz hitting a towering home run to the left to make the score 1-0.
The Royals fought back bravely in the fifth with Alcides Escobar, Jeff Francoeur and Chris Getz scoring two runs to surprise Texas. Brayan Pena scored one more run in the seventh to force the Rangers completely out of the game.
"Against that lineup, he was unbelievable," Royals catcher Brayan Pena said. "He kept the ball down, mixed pretty good trying to make sure that the big boys didn't hurt us."
"I think Bruce Chen faced Josh Hamilton about as good as you can face him. Two souvenirs in the stands," Kansas City manager Ned Yost said.
"That was a great win right there. Bruce was just superb," he said. "He made one mistake, and the pitch wasn't that bad a pitch, but it was a 2-0 cutter right into Cruz's hot zone. Besides that, he was spectacular."
Texas entered the series with a mighty 23-12 record and the odds were stacked in their favour heavily. However, despite having the winning momentum and confidence on their side, the Rangers were unable to deliver the results and the Royals secured an absolutely
stunning victory to take 1-0 lead in the series.
Ron Washington and company had no answers against some high quality pitching from Bruce Chen, who changed his speeds to great effect throughout the contest. He also moved his pitches inside and outside to create all sorts of problems for the Rangers’ batters.
Even Josh Hamilton, who has looked in commanding form since the start of the season, was kept off balance by Chen who threw seven solid innings to win his second straight start.
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