Royals Report: KC Shuts Out Giants For 2-0 Victory

The Royals pitchers shut down San Francisco Giants hitters in a 2-0 win in Surprise, Arizona on Saturday afternoon in a split squad game.

The Kansas City Royals improved to 6-2 this spring with their 2-0 victory over San Francisco. Seven KC pitchers held the Giants to three hits and zero walks while striking out five. Jason Hammel started and pitched two scoreless innings followed by Mike Minor who also allowed no runs in two innings.

Scott Alexander, Miguel Almonte, Al Alburquerque, Kyle Zimmer, and Bobby Parnell followed with one inning stints.

Guess you can’t do much better than a three hit shutout.

Lorenzo Cain supplied the only scoring in the game with a two-run shot in the fifth inning against Kraig Sitton. I guess he didn’t think much of my article earlier today in which I said that signing him to a long-term extension was too risky due to his age and injury history.

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My takeaways from this game include noting that the KC Royals continue to show patience at the plate. Though they only scored twice, they did stroke eight hits and walked three times. Salvador Perez is hitting a scorching .556 while Raul Mondesi checks in at .538. Mondesi, apparently, doesn’t buy into the conventional wisdom that he needs more seasoning at AAA before he’s ready to hit major league pitching.

Cain, however, produced the game’s only extra-base hit with his home run. Hitters typically improve their walk rate as they age, which suggests the Royals patience could be on the upswing in 2017.

On the mound, non-roster invitee Al Alburquerque continues to show well with this third strait scoreless outing. If he continues to get hitters out he might elbow his way into the KC bullpen. If not, he’ll could catch the eye of another team. Lots of major league squads could use bullpen help.

Next: Royals Should Resist Urge To Extend Lorenzo Cain

Of course, it’s only spring training which everyone knows can be completely irrelevant once the regular season starts. But, hey, it looks like real baseball so it’s hard to discount it.