Jeremy Guthrie Solid Again in Royals Win Over Rangers

Jeremy Guthrie rattled off another quality start and Alex Gordon and Johnny Giavotella homered to center to help the Royals avenge Monday afternoon’s loss to the Rangers with a 6-3 win Tuesday night.

On Monday, the Rangers hit five homers to put up eight runs. In the first inning on Tuesday, Elvis Andrus led off with a homer to keep the power surge going and the Rangers added a run in the second on a double by Mitch Moreland to go up 2-0.

The Royals got on the board in the bottom of the second when Alcides Escobar snapped an 0-21 skid with a double down the line to score Lorenzo Cain. He moved to third on an Alex Gordon ground out and scored on a close play at the plate after a Billy Butler fly ball to center.

In the fifth, Lorenzo Cain singled and scored on Gordon’s homer to center, a no doubt shot. Butler followed with a single and scored from first on a double to the gap by Salvador Perez. The Royals added one more on Giavotella’s bomb.

While Guthrie had a good stretch of starts, his short stint in Boston caused some worry that the clock had struck midnight, but he followed it up with another seven inning game, then started rough tonight. Ned Yost credited a pickoff by Perez of Ian Kinsler at third as a turning point. Kinsler had led off the third inning with a double and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt. Then Perez gunned him out with Josh Hamilton up. His third pickoff of the year (after missing half the season) now leads the majors. Guthrie struck out Hamilton to end the inning and finish off the threat. He cruised from there.

The only other hint of trouble came after back to back singles by Hamilton and Beltre off Kelvin Herrera as he started the ninth inning, his second of the night. Greg Holland came in and got a strikeout out of Nelson Cruz on a filthy slider, got a second out from Michael Young on a sacrifice fly that scored Hamilton. Daniel Murphy grounded out to Giavotella to on a force to second to end the game.

That’s a solid win. The top five batters scored and drove in five of the six runs, with Giavotella’s homer from the ninth spot being the outlier. Every batter that came to the plate got a base hit. Mike Moustakas doubled off of starter Matt Harrison and Gordon’s homer was off of him as well. Harrison entered the game allowing only a .492 OPS against left-handed batters this season.

Tomorrow, the Royals will send Everett Teaford to the mound with Vin Mazzaro set to pitch as well. Will Smith‘s turn was coming up, but he pitched the first game in Saturday’s double header rather than the Friday he’d been scheduled. Hochevar was an option on short rest after 1.2 innings in game two on Saturday, but Ned Yost wanted to give him his full four days rest.