Road Woes Continue, Indians Sweep Royals

Eric Hosmer went 4-5 with a double and homerun and Mike Moustakas homered twice as the duo drove in six of Omaha’s seven runs on Thursday night.

The offensive onslaught included back to back homers in the bottom of the fifth inning.

It was more than enough offense for Omaha as four pitchers shut out Iowa, limiting them to three hits.  Danny Duffy led the way with six innings pitched, striking out eight in the process.  He allowed one hit, a shot off the glove of Johnny Giavotella.

Okay.

Fine.

I’ll talk about the Indians game.

Coming in, the Royals had lost five straight since leaving Kansas City with a 12-7 record.  The skid threatened to put them under .500 since being 0-1 after opening day.

Just like in the last two games in Cleveland, the Royals stumbled out of the gate.

After going down in order in the top of the first, Kyle Davies gave up two solo homers with two outs.

Then he gave up another one, this time to Grady Sizemore leading off the third.  Shelley Duncan hit the fourth of the night to lead off the fourth.

Believe it or not, after giving up four runs, it didn’t get ugly until after that.  Davies gave up five more hits and four more runs.  The Royals were down 8-0 and had a whole two hits of their own.

The longball was an issue on this road trip, with the Royals surrendering 17 in the six games.  Granted, three games were in Texas and the other three were in Progressive Field, both home run environments.  The Royals gave up a run in the first inning in every game against Cleveland this series, and the Indians batted around for the second night in a row on Royals starting pitching.

Royals pitching gave up five runs in an inning three times in the six game road trip.

Up until the start of the seventh, only Alcides Escobar and Matt Treanor had hits.  A Billy Butler walk and back to back doubles by Jeff Francoeur (who extended his hitting streak to a career high 17 games) and Wilson Betemit produced the only two runs for the Royals.

Just like last night, there wasn’t a whole lot of positive going on, but if you want to take something out of the depressing loss, the bullpen didn’t give up a run the rest of the way.  Tim Collins, Blake Wood and Aaron Crow combined for 4.2 scoreless and gave up just one hit combined.

After two consecutive games where the Royals starter didn’t make it out of the fourth inning – and only two starts of the last six went six innings or better – the bullpen needs a rest.  Bruce Chen has that to shoot for tomorrow as he takes on Scott Baker and a struggling Twins team (who are missing Joe Mauer, Delmon Young and import Tsuyoshi Nishioka).

Here’s hoping for good news tomorrow.

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