Bobby Witt Jr. and Drew Waters both homered and tripled to power the host Kansas City Royals to an 8-4 victory that avoided a series sweep by the American League-best Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.
The Rays entered the game averaging 5.4 runs per game, but they were shut down early by Royals righty Brady Singer, while Kansas City jumped on Tampa Bay ace right-hander Zach Eflin, who hadn’t allowed more than four runs in any of his 17 previous starts this season.
Singer (6-8) worked eight innings, allowing four runs on seven hits. He struck out four without walking a batter and recorded 13 ground-ball outs.
Eflin (10-5) was chased from the game after throwing a season-low three innings, allowing five earned runs on seven hits.
MJ Melendez got the Royals on the board in the first inning, doubling home Salvador Perez.
Kansas City stretched its lead to 5-0 in the second, when Waters and Witt sandwiched RBI triples around a run-scoring single by Nick Pratto.
Waters led off the fourth with the Royals’ longest home run of the season, a 465-foot blast off Yonny Chirinos for a 6-0 lead. Witt victimized Chirinos with another long ball in the fifth, his team-leading 16th homer, to stretch the lead to 7-0.
Singer was masterful early on, retiring the first seven batters he faced and keeping Tampa Bay scoreless through seven innings. Isaac Paredes broke up his shutout bid with a solo home run, his 17th of the season, leading off the eighth.
Singer gave up four straight hits that inning, capped by Francisco Mejia’s three-run homer to draw the Rays within three at 7-4.
But Melendez tacked on some insurance with a 409-foot homer off Chirinos in the eighth.
Perez, the Royals’ All-Star catcher, came out of the game in the second with what was described as left hamstring discomfort. The slow-footed Perez appeared to be in pain as he lumbered home to score from second on a headfirst slide on Melendez’s double.
–Field Level Media
