Royals Ride Four-Run Seventh To Series Win

Royals backups Drew Butera and Christian Colon combined to go 3-7, with three doubles and two RBI.

The Royals jumped on the Orioles for a four-run seventh inning, on the backs of Christian Colon and Drew Butera, in route to a 2-1 win in Sunday afternoon’s rubber match at Kauffman Stadium.

The Orioles started the scoring in the first inning, on a Mark Trumbo RBI single, driving in Manny Machado who walked and advanced to second on an Adam Jones single.

Ventura needed 28 pitches to get through the first, but responded by throwing just 25 pitches over the next three innings.

He finished his day with hist first 7+ inning outing of the season, going the full seven, while giving up just three hits, one run, and striking out four Orioles.

The Royals responded in the fourth inning with Alex Gordon‘s second homer of the season, an opposite field wall-scraper, making it 1-1.

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Two innings later, Hosmer added a homer of his own, this one not being a wall scraper, leaving Hosmer’s bat at an exit velocity of 100 MPH.

The Royals jumped on Orioles starter Mike Wright again in the 7th, with Gordon leading off with an infield single, and being driven in on hit-and-run RBI double from Christian Colon into the left-field corner.

After Colon was thrown out at third base on a botched bunt attempt by Jarrod Dyson, Drew Butera picked up the slack by smacking a double into the right-center field gap, driving in Dyson, to make it 4-1 Royals.

He also gave an 80-grade hair flip.

"Hair flip"