Royals Report: Boston Blasts Danny Duffy In 8-3 Loss

The Royals lost 8-3 Saturday night at Fenway Park as Boston hitters blasted Danny Duffy for seven earned runs. The KC Royals and Red Sox will play the rubber game of the series Sunday afternoon.

The Kansas City Royals fell to 67-62 by losing 8-3 on Saturday. They remain 6.5 games behind AL Central leading Cleveland. Kansas City remain to 3.0 games behind the Orioles for the second AL wild card. Boston improved to  72-57 and remain 1.0 game behind the Blue Jays in the AL East.

Danny Duffy just didn’t have it Saturday night. Trying to tie a KC Royals record with 11 straight winning decisions, he only lasted 5.0 innings, while allowing 9 hits, 2 walks, 3 home runs, and 7 earned runs with only 2 strikeouts.

The bottom line was that Boston hitters patiently waited him out as he struggled with his command. Then they smashed the ball with the count in their favor. Xander Bogaerts got the Red Sox started with a two-run shot in the first inning to put Boston up 2-0.

The Royals responded with two runs in the top of the second on Salvador Perez‘s solo home run and doubles from Alex Gordon and Alcides Escobar. But, the Red Sox added two more runs in the bottom of the inning, another run in the fourth inning, and back to back solo home runs from Mookie Betts and Hanley Ramirez. That outburst put Boston in control up 7-2.

The Red Sox added a single run in the sixth off long reliever Chien-Ming Wang to put Boston up 8-2. Salvador Perez led of the ninth for the Royals win his second solo shot of the game to make the final score 8-3.

In the end, it just wasn’t a good night for Kansas City. Boston cashed most of the opportunities that they squandered against Ian Kennedy on Friday. You can’t give that many base-runner to the best offense in baseball and expect to win.

Let’s just hope Yordano Ventura has his “A” game on Sunday, or else the KC Royals can put up a whole lot of runs.

Next: What Should The Royals Do With Cheslor Cuthbert In 2017?

Pretty much the only silver lining to the loss is that Wang pitched the final four innings to save the rest of the pen for Sunday’s rubber game. Yordano Ventura gets the start to attempt to win Kansas City’s seventh straight series.