Brothers Josh and Bo Naylor combined for six hits and four RBIs and Gavin Williams earned his first major league victory as the Cleveland Guardians recorded a season-high 18 hits in a 10-6 win over the visiting Kansas City Royals on Saturday.
Josh Bell went 3-for-3 with two RBIs for the Guardians, who have won the first three games of the four-game series. Cleveland eclipsed the .500 mark for the first time since April 19, when it was 10-9.
Williams (1-1) allowed three runs on eight hits and one walk with seven strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings in his fourth career start.
Bobby Witt Jr. homered and tripled among his three hits and drove in two runs for Kansas City, which lost its sixth straight game.
Cleveland claimed an early lead in the first inning against Brady Singer (5-8) when Josh Naylor’s single scored Jose Ramirez, who doubled with two outs.
Singer ran into trouble again in the second inning, when Bell scored on Myles Straw’s sacrifice fly and Bo Naylor followed with a run-scoring single.
Cleveland extended its lead to 5-0 in the fourth inning when Steven Kwan singled in a run and Bo Naylor scored from third on Amed Rosario’s fielder’s-choice grounder.
After Witt put the Royals on the board with an RBI triple in the fifth, Cleveland answered with Bo Naylor’s run-scoring double in the bottom half of the inning.
Singer was lifted after giving up six runs on a season-high 13 hits with one walk and three strikeouts over five innings.
After Kansas City knocked Williams out of the game with two runs in the sixth inning, Cleveland tacked on a run in the bottom of the sixth.
Witt hit a solo blast in the seventh off Eli Morgan for his 14th homer of the season.
The Royals nearly tied the game in the eighth inning after Nicky Lopez hit a two-out, run-scoring single off Sam Hentges, who was replaced by Enyel De Los Santos.
Maikel Garcia followed with a double to right-center field that scored Matt Duffy from second base, but Lopez was thrown out at the plate trying to score from first on a perfect relay.
Cleveland added three insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth against Nick Wittgren. Josh Naylor delivered an RBI double, and Bell capped the scoring with a two-run single.
–Field Level Media
