Max Scherzer shines on the mound as Detroit Tigers defeat Kansas City Royals 3-1 – MLB Update
Max Scherzer’s brilliance at the mound helped the Detroit Tigers to a well-earned 3-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Thursday, July 7 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
Kansas City continued with their below par performance this season as they managed to add just one run in the fifth inning helped by Eric Hosmer. Scherzer dominated the Royals’ batters with his precision. His 6.2 innings of tremendous pitching went for just
one run and six hits. Although low on strike-outs, his pitching was enough to facilitate his tenth win of the season with just four losses thus far.
Phil Coke and Joaquin Benoit followed the code and the relief pitchers were duly rewarded with their second and 12th holds for the season respectively. Jose Valverde came on to close the game for the Tigers and his performance was impressive in
the low-scoring game. He managed his 22nd save this season to complete an admirable performance by the Detroit pitching staff.
The Royals needed a comparable performance by their pitching line-up but their starter leaked a run for the Royals to make a comeback. Danny Duffy pitched for six innings and conceded four hits and two runs. In any other game, this performance could have
been termed satisfactory but with runs coming scarcely, two runs proved to be too much. His six strike-outs did not help him either and he lost his fourth game of the season with just a solitary win to accompany.
Louis Coleman pitched two clean innings before Aaron Crow came on to close the game. The All-Star relief pitcher ended up giving another run in the last inning for the Royals to face a two-run deficit but with batters not responding to their task, a two-run
lead was sufficient for the Tigers.
Tigers struck two home-runs in their three runs. Ryan Raburn initiated the scoring with a 389-feet home-run in the second inning as Miguel Cabrera added another for the scorecard to read 2-0. Don Kelly’s homer in the last inning off Crow sealed the night
as there was no coming back for the Royals.
After the game, Scherzer said, "It's nice for the team to come in and win the first game of the series." Schrezer commented that he was itching to get the ball in his hand. He lived up to his bullpen’s expectations and now joins team-mate Justin Verlander
in reaching a double-digit win figure for the season.
The Tigers now lead the four-game series 1-0 with three more games to play. The Royals are 36-52 for the season and need a resurgence to stage a come-back in the season. The Tigers, on the contrary, have a nice chance to build on to their 47-42 record for
the season.
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