3 happy takes from another winning KC Royals weekend

The KC Royals just finished their second weekend of Cactus League play. Fortunately, it was much like their first.

After winning their Friday, Saturday and Sunday games last week, the Royals won three of the four contests they played this weekend. Only a 7-6 Saturday evening loss to the Dodgers in the second of the day's two split-squad games prevented the club from enjoying another perfect weekend: the Royals beat the A's 6-4 Friday, hammered the Reds 12-6 Saturday afternoon. and turned back the Giants 5-1 Sunday.

It was a pretty good weekend for Kansas City, which now leads the Cactus League with a 9-2 record. Three things happened from Friday through Sunday that should make Royals fans happy.

The KC Royals continued their excellent hitting over the weekend

Kansas City's offense, a sore spot that helped drag the team down last season, has been humming since Cactus League play began nine days ago, with eight especially hot hitters leading the way entering Saturday's games.

The Royals didn't cool off over the weekend. They scored 29 runs to average 7.25 per game, just a tick down from their 7.5 clip through Friday. And they banged out 48 hits, including 14 against both the Reds and Dodgers Saturday.

Pacing KC's weekend attack with a combined 9-for-11 performance were Nick Pratto (more on him in a moment), and Matt Duffy. Duffy's quest to make the Opening Day roster remained impressive: he's hitting .600 (9-for-15) with three doubles and four RBIs.

And the offensive highlight of the weekend may well be the triple Gavin Cross, the club's No. 1 prospect per MLB Pipeline who'd never appeared in any kind of major league game, laced Saturday night. Just in case you missed it:

Two keys to the KC Royals' 2023 starting rotation pitched quite well

Kansas City won't make its way out of the American League Central cellar this season unless its rotation improves considerably. Two big league veterans, Zack Greinke and Jordan Lyles, are especially important to the group of starters new manager Matt Quatraro will rely on to avoid a second consecutive last place finish.

The weekend was good for both.

Greinke, who signed another one-year deal to return to the club he came back to last season, started against the Dodgers Saturday night and surrendered a run and three singles in three innings. He struck out three and lowered his ERA to 1.80.

He gave up two singles to start the second but escaped with little damage after inducing two groundouts and striking out Steven Duggar to end LA's one-run inning. Only a walk in the third blemished Greinke's final frame of the night. He's now been nicked for two runs in five Cactus League innings.

Lyles started Sunday and, pitching for the second time this spring, fanned three and limited San Francisco to three hits over three scoreless innings. Credited with the win, he's 1-0 with a 3.60 ERA.

The Royals signed Lyles, who led Baltimore's rotation with 12 wins last year, two a two-year, $17 million free agent contract in December. Expect him to pitch in the middle of Quatraro's rotation.