Luis Mendoza shines as Kansas City Royals outclass Cleveland Indians 5-2 – MLB Update
Kansas City Royals outclassed the Cleveland Indians 5-2 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Wednesday, August 1 in second game of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Alcides Escobar stole third and scored on a throwing error by catcher Carlos Santana in the first to put the Royals on the board. Home Run Derby selection, Billy Butler also made his presence felt as he grounded out to second to extend Royals’ lead to 2-0.
Alex Gordon and right fielder Lorenzo Cain earned RBI’s in the second and fifth to give their side complete control of the situation.
For Cleveland, Santana homered to right in the fourth and Asdrubal Cabrera had an RBI single to left in the eighth but the Royals held on to their lead comfortably to prevail.
Royals’ starting pitcher Luis Mendoza pitched seven plus effective innings. He gave up just two runs and four hits for his fifth win of the season.
"You can't give up on starting pitching," Royals’ manager Ned Yost said. "It was the Pacific Coast League, but he was the Pacific Coast League pitcher of the year last year. He went through the entire year as the best pitcher in that league in a hitter's
league. So we knew it was there. We knew he had to get his feet underneath him. The more comfortable he got, we felt the better off he would be both for himself and for us. So far that's shown to be true."
Manager Ned Yost will be very happy to see his team back on the winning track. The Royals had lost nine out of 11 games prior to their series against the Indians. Credit should be given to them for finding their lost form in front of their home crowd to
avoid another humiliating series defeat.
After annihilating the Indians 8-3 in series opener, the Royals put up another strong show on Wednesday to take a decisive 2-0 lead in the series. It will be interesting to see if Yost and company can give similar results in the finale to build on some much
needed confidence.
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