Royals Knock Off Angels 7-3 To Win Series

It took him over 65 pitches to get through three innings.

Jonathan Sanchez‘s first official start could have been a bit smoother, but all’s well that ends well. After grinding through the first three innings which saw Sanchez give up two runs on a combination of walks and wild pitches, he finally settled down a bit and got through enough innings to get the win. However, that third inning was key. Sanchez got in trouble and had the bases loaded with none out. He ended up getting out of the jam with only one run given up by inducing a ground-out, striking out Vernon Wells, and getting Kendry Morales to ground out as well.

Getting out of tough spots is going to be important for the KC’s starting pitchers if the Royals want to be successful this season and Sanchez was able to do that today. He was helped out by the offense as well. Billy Butler hit his first home run of the year and Hosmer hit his second. The bullpen did reasonably well. The Angels got their only other run off of a Vernon Wells homer in the 8th off of Kelvin Herrera who ran into a bit of trouble before Aaron Crow came in and cleaned up. Jose Mijares pitched an inning as well and Broxton got the save striking out 3 straight batters in the 9th.

The offense didn’t have trouble scoring today and all this without leadoff man Alex Gordon‘s help. Gordon has still yet to get his first hit of the season, going 0-5 today and 0-13 on the year with 6 strikeouts. Once he gets going the lineup can only get better.

Riding a high off of winning a series over a team that many people picked as favorites to win the A.L. West, the Royals travel to Oakland to begin a series with the Athletics tomorrow night. Barring something crazy happening, Luis Mendoza takes the hill for the Royals against the A’s at 9:05 tomorrow.

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