The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion moved to 23-4 with a pair of wins in Great Bend Tuesday night. The Eagles score a run in the seventh to win the opener 9-8 then score 14 runs on 14 hits in a 14-0, four inning run-rule victory in game two. They host Dodge City for two Thursday at 6pm at Larks Park.
Game 1: Hays Eagles 9, Great Bend Chiefs 8
Clayton Basgall’s two-run sixth inning single broke a 6-6 tie and gave the Eagles and 8-6 lead.
After Great Bend scored two in the bottom of the inning to tie, Riley Kaus hit a two-out single, moved to second on a wild pitch, advanced to third on Hayden Hutchison’s single then scored on an error on the left fielder.
Both teams scored four in the first. The Eagles add two in the second. Great Bend had single runs in the third and fourth to tie the game at six.
Austin Unrein picks up the win in relief despite giving up the two runs in the sixth. Starter Tyler Wooldridge went five innings, allowing six runs (two earned) on eight hits.
Riley Kaus and Hayden Hutchison both have two hits. Clayton Basgall and Jarrett Sanders both drive in two. Sanders did his with a two-run homer in the first inning.
Game 2: Eagles Eagles 14, Great Bend Chiefs 0 (4 innings)
The Eagles strike early, scoring two in the first then add five in the second and seven in the third.
Casey Sedbrook goes four innings for the win, allowing just two hits while striking out five and walking just one.
Zack Legleiter drove in six, four of them with a grand slam in the Eagles seven-run third. Hayden Hutchison also homered, a two-run shot in the first.
The Hays Monarchs needed just seven innings Tuesday night for a pair of wins over Russell. The Monarchs win the opener 13-2 in four innings and take game two 15-0 in three.
Pierce Schippers and Cameron Brin were the winning pitchers.
Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Bruce Chen (52) delivers a pitch in the first inning of the game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Kauffman Stadium. Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City is doing to the Tampa Bay Rays precisely what the St. Louis Cardinals did to the Royals over the weekend.
Bruce Chen gave the Royals strong pitching for the second straight night, Jeff Francoeur and Yuniesky Betancourt homered to extend a string of hot hitting, and Kansas City routed the Rays 8-2 on Tuesday night to set up a chance for a series sweep.
Alex Gordon and Billy Butler also drove in runs to pace a Royals offense that was outscored by St. Louis 30-14 over the weekend, but has trumped Tampa Bay 16-2 through two games.
“What the Cardinals did to us those three days is what we’re doing to the Rays, just adding on and adding on,” Francoeur said. “It’s a good time for us to get going.”
Chen (7-6) gave up a run in the first inning and Brooks Conrad’s solo shot in the second, but was otherwise stingy on another warm night in Kansas City. The 35-year-old left-hander managed to avoid any serious trouble to win for the seventh time in his last nine decisions.
He built on a shutout tossed by Luke Hochevar in the series opener, and suddenly, a pitching staff that was hammered by the Cardinals has hamstrung the light-hitting Rays.
“I felt really good. I was mixing my pitches,” Chen said. “We’re not taking anything for granted, but we’re feeling good, we’re playing good, and now we we’ve won back-to-back games.”
The Rays looked as though they were about to emerge from their own offensive funk the first two innings. They coaxed a run across in the first on consecutive hits and a fly ball by Hideki Matsui, and Conrad made it 2-0 when he went deep in the second inning.
That’s where the highlights ended for Tampa Bay.
The Royals started to hit Tampa Bay starter Alex Archer (0-2) in the third inning, though they got plenty of help from Rays shortstop Sean Rodriguez, who committed errors on consecutive plays.
Jarrod Dyson led off with a single, and Alcides Escobar sent a rocket off the wall in left-center, just missing his second homer of the year. He was credited with a double, but went to third as Dyson scampered home when Rodriguez’s relay throw to the plate resulted in an error.
Gordon stepped the plate and sent a grounder at Rodriguez, which brought home Escobar with the tying run. Rodriguez couldn’t field the ball cleanly, which allowed Gordon to reach first.
It proved to be a costly when Betancourt homered over the bullpen in left.
The 23-year-old Archer, who was recalled last week to start in place of the injured Jeremy Hellickson, still managed to keep things close into the sixth. It was his second straight strong start, one that could keep him hanging around the big leagues in the future.
“I did my best to keep us in the game. The ball just didn’t bounce our way on offense,” he said. “Overall, I think I did play well. I made some mistake pitches, hung a slider. It happens.”
It happened more once he turned things over to the bullpen.
Gordon doubled leading off the eighth inning, and after Mike Moustakas worked a one-out walk, Butler came through with an RBI single. Francoeur was next to the plate and crushed a pitch from reliever Brandon Gomes over the wall for an exclamation-point home run.
“The beat us. They just beat us,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “We need to score more runs.”
They need to stop allowing so many, too. The Royals’ once-scuttling offense has scored at least eight runs only seven times this season — including both games against Tampa Bay.
“Our approach has been great. We’re swinging at good pitches, we’re hitting balls hard,” Butler said. “We were struggling before these last three games. It feels good to put up runs.”
NOTES: LHP Everett Teaford will be recalled from Triple-A Omaha to start for Kansas City in the series finale Wednesday. LHP Matt Moore will start for Tampa Bay. … Maddon said DH Luke Scott (back stiffness) could return by Thursday. … Tampa Bay skipped batting practice in part because of the heat. The game-time temperature was 93 degrees, and the forecast calls for 100 on Wednesday.
June 25, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals pitcher Luke Hochevar (44) Hugs catcher Salvador Perez (13) after pitching a complete game shutout against the Tampa Bay Rays at Kauffman Stadium. Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Luke Hochevar was taken aback when he walked into the manager’s office one day and manager Ned Yost and the Royals coaches started trying to convince him to make a change.
Simplify your approach, they said. Use your three core pitches.
It took a while for Hochevar to buy in.
Now the change is paying off.
The mercurial right-hander struck out eight in his second career shutout, and the Kansas City offense made sure to come through in an 8-0 rout of the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night.
“I guess I have to come up with a better word than fantastic, tremendous and great. He was phenomenal,” Yost said. “The results have been dramatically improved since he got back to his three core pitches. He’s starting to show exactly what he can do.”
His arsenal pared down to primarily a four-seam fastball, curveball and change-up, Hochevar (5-7) mowed through a weak-hitting Tampa Bay lineup for his first shutout since Sept. 18, 2009.
Now, the pitcher who was allowing nearly a run per inning earlier in the year has gone 16 2-3 scoreless innings, and is starting to resembled a former No. 1 overall draft pick.
“That was a great outing by Hoch,” said Eric Hosmer, who tacked on a homer in the eighth inning to finish off the scoring. “He was in the zone, he was pounding pitches. He was great.”
Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon both had three hits for the Royals, who were coming off an embarrassing sweep at the hands of St. Louis in which they were outscored 30-14 and burned through their bullpen — which made the start by Hochevar all the more impressive.
No Royals starter had even gone eight innings so far this season.
“If you don’t get him early and permit him to settle in, he gets better,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “He was all over us tonight”
Alex Cobb (3-4) also managed to throw a complete game, the first of his career, though it wasn’t nearly as impressive: He allowed 13 hits while falling to 1-4 in his last five starts.
“In the first few innings, I just felt uncomfortable out there,” he said. “Everything they were hitting was dropping. Unfortunately, they were falling everywhere.”
The banged-up Rays came into the game riding plenty of momentum after a double-header sweep of Philadelphia, while the Royals limped in after their rough series against the Cardinals.
Somebody must have flipped the script.
It was Kansas City that came out swinging from the start, with Gordon’s leadoff double setting up an RBI double by Mike Moustakas when the ball bounced off right fielder Ben Zobrist’s glove and over his head after he appeared to briefly lose it in the setting sun.
Cobb worked through a perfect second inning before coming unglued in the third.
It started with Escobar’s bunt single and a base hit by Gordon, and included a wild pitch that plate umpire Todd Tichenor accidentally kicked away from catcher Jose Molina, allowing both of the runners to advance. Betancourt followed with a two-run single.
Billy Butler came to the plate with one out and added a single, and Jeff Francoeur followed with an RBI single in which Butler was thrown out trying to reach third. Hosmer contributed an RBI single, and Salvador Perez added another run-scoring single, though he was cut down to end the inning after making a wide turn around first.
The inning ended after five runs on seven singles in a span of only eight batters.
The Royals added another run on Betancourt’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning, and Hosmer went deep in the eighth, though both runs were moot the way Hochevar was dealing.
He got some help from double plays in the first and seventh innings, but otherwise took care of things himself. He worked a perfect second and sixth, and came back from consecutive base hits to start the fifth with three consecutive strikeouts.
It was the first time he had gone eight innings since last Sept. 3 against Cleveland.
This time, Hochevar managed to finish things off.
“I don’t think you ever have it figured out, because hitters adjust, the game is always changing,” he said. “I know what I’m focusing on now, though, and that’s going to be consistent.”
NOTES: Hochevar had been 0-4 at home this season. … Rays 1B Carlos Pena went 0 for 3, dropping his average to .197. DH Hideki Matsui went 0 for 4 and is hitting .159. … Royals RHP Roman Colon was assigned outright to Triple-A Omaha. … LHP Matt Moore starts Tuesday night for Tampa Bay. LHP Bruce Chen goes for Kansas City. … The game time was 2 hours, 17 minutes.
Justin Ziegler allowed two runs on six hits over six innings Sunday night, helping the Hays Larks avoid a sweep in Derby with a 14-2 win. Ziegler improves to 3-1 on the season.
Austin Darby and Zair Koeiman both homered in the Hays Larks five-run fifth inning as they salvage the final game of their three-game series in Derby with a 14-2 rout Sunday night.
Darby led off the fifth with a solo homer. Koeiman later followed with a three-run shot and would finish with three hits and four RBI’s. Shortstop Elvin Rodriguez had a hit and drove in two in his return to the lineup. Rodriguez missed 15 games with a broken finger.
The Larks blew the game open with a seven-run seventh.
Justin Ziegler (3-1) allowed just the two runs on six hits over six innings for the win as the Larks improve to 14-6 and move to 8-6 in the Jayhawk League where they are tied for second, a half-game back of Liberal who lost 3-2 in El Dorado.
The Larks are off Monday before heading to Dodge City on Tuesday and Liberal Wednesday.
The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion goes 5-1 at the Battle of Omaha tournament, losing 5-2 to the Arkansas Black Sox in the first round of tournament play Sunday.
The Black Sox, who hadn’t lost a game this summer and were a state champ during the high school season, scored four in the third and one in the fourth.
The Eagles plated two runs in the bottom of the fourth on a Riley Kaus single. Kaus later scored on a wild pitch.
Hays threatened in the fifth but left runners at the corners.
Clayton Basgall takes the loss, going all seven innings and allowing just one earned run while striking out three and walking one.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Losing is always tough. Wasting four home runs in an 11-8 setback to St. Louis felt particularly galling to the Kansas City Royals on Sunday.
The loss gave the visitors a three-game sweep in Kauffman Stadium just a week after KC took two out of three on the Cardinals turf.
“It’s real disappointing any time you drop three straight,” said Mike Moustakas, the second-year third baseman who hit two of the home runs and had three RBIs. “We played good baseball today and battled back, but we just couldn’t get there at the end.”
Carlos Beltran had a three-run home run and Matt Holliday and Allen Craig each drove in two runs for the Cardinals, who had scored just eleven runs their three previous games but amassed 41 hits and 30 runs in routing the Royals on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Starter Jonathan Sanchez and reliever Tim Collins (4-2) combined to give the Cardinals nine walks on Sunday. And while two of the walks were intentional, that just means the pitchers had done something earlier in the inning to cause trouble for themselves.
“When you set in to play these games, you want the opposition to beat you,” said Royals manager Ned Yost. “When you are walking guys and making errors, you are actually beating yourself.”
Jeff Francoeur had a solo home run for the Royals and Billy Butler delivered a two-run shot in the ninth.
Trying since April to recover from a 12-game losing streak, the Royals had fought back to just five games under .500. But the pitching collapse against St. Louis plunged them to 31-39.
Beltran’s home run came on an 0-2 pitch.
“He’s a pretty good hitter,” said Sanchez. “At 0-2, that (home run pitch) was a mistake and he took advantage of it.”
Patience, said Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, was key in causing the bats to come alive.
“Guys aren’t chasing many pitches out of the (strike) zone. That’s kind of what’s going on here.”
In heaping three days of abuse upon KC pitchers, the heavy-hitting Cardinals rapped out 17 hits and 11 runs on Friday and 16 hits and eight runs on Saturday before completing their first sweep in Kansas City since 2009 with an 11-8 victory on Sunday.
“We know we’re a good offensive team that’s going to be able to score runs. It’s good to see guys getting healthy and swinging the bat a lot better,” said Beltran.
Beltran is tied with Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun for the NL lead. The three RBIs boosted his total to 56, one more than league-leader Andre Ethier had prior to the Dodgers’ game at the Angels. For the three-game series between the state rivals, Beltran had five hits and eight RBIs.
He’s also one homer shy of 200 in the National League. He has 322 overall.
“I don’t really focus on numbers,” he said. “I do look at my numbers at the end of the year and decide what type of year I have. Right now, we have a lot of baseball to play. I just need to focus and help this team win as many ballgames as we can.”
Moustakas, the second overall pick in the 2007 draft, hit a two-run, 442-foot shot off Lance Lynn in the first inning and led off the fourth with a 387-foot shot for his first multihomer game. He also had a single and three RBIs.
“I just got some good pitches to hit today and I didn’t miss them,” Moustakas said.
Lynn agreed.
“I made mistakes and both the guys who hit them are good hitters,” he said. “Moustakas is a great young power hitter and I threw him two fastballs over the plate and he hit them. Then I hung a breaking ball to Francoeur. You’ve got to make better pitches to those guys.”
Sanchez gave up only four hits in 5 2-3 innings but walked six, allowed two home runs and threw a wild pitch while allowing six runs.
NOTES: Royals 1B Eric Hosmer had the day off and was replaced by Billy Butler. … Beltran’s homer came exactly eight years after his previous home run in Kauffman Stadium, in his final game as a Royal. … Moustakas joined Butler as the only Royals player with two-homer games this season. … The Cardinals lead the series 42-30.
Larks starter Joey Begel allowed just one hit Saturday night, unfortunately that one hit was a sixth inning grand slam as the Derby Twins defeat the Hays Larks 6-2.
Begel didn’t allow a hit through 5 2/3 innings in his second start of the season, getting a groundout and a strikeout to begin the sixth. The Twins took advantage of an error on Larks shortstop Nolan Johnson to extend the inning. Begel then walked the next two batters before giving up the bases-loaded home run which gave Derby a 4-1 lead. All four runs were unearned.
The Larks took a 1-0 lead in the third on a Jay Sanders home run. They wouldn’t score again until the ninth when Brett Lang drove in Austin Darby on a fielders choice. With runners at first and third, MacKenzie Handel lined into a double play to end the game.
Begel takes the loss as the Larks drop their second straight and fall to 13-6 and 7-6 in the Jayhawk League. Derby improves to 7-11 overall and 7-9 in the Jayhawk League.
The Larks will try to avoid the sweep in the series finale Sunday night.
The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion picked up two more wins Saturday to move to 5-0 at the Battle of Omaha Tournament. The Eagles defeated the West Texas Outlaws 11-0 in five innings then knocked off O’Fallon (Ill.) 2-1 to win their pool and move their record to 21-3 on the season. The Eagles begin single-elimination bracket play Sunday morning.
Game 1: Eagles 11, West Texas 0 (5 innings) Hays struck quickly, scoring three in the first and seven in the second. Hayden Hutchison hit a 2-run homer in the first. He added an RBI double in the second. Trevor Henningson also hit a 2-run double in the second inning.
Josh Heifner moves to 4-0 with the win, allowing four hits while striking out 11 and walking none.
Hutchison and Casey Sedbrook both had three hits. Hutchison finished the game with four RBI. Austin Unrein and Trevor Henningson both drove in two.
Game 2: Hays 2, O’Fallon (Ill.) 1 The Eagles rallied with one in the fourth on Hayden Hutchison home run to tie then scored the go-ahead and winning run in the bottom of the eighth on a Riley Kaus single.
Hutchison was the winning pitcher, working around a leadoff single in the seventh by getting three groundouts to end the game. Hutchison allowed just the one run on seven hits, walking one and striking out one and is now 5-0.
Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer (35) and third baseman Mike Moustakas (8) stand together during a pitching change in the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, June 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When things have gone poorly for the Kansas City Royals this season, the attention invariably has fallen on a patchwork starting rotation that seems to be trying to soak up innings.
After a second consecutive dud against the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday, manager Ned Yost was just as perturbed with the Royals’ scuffling offense.
Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas had two of the Royals’ six hits against stingy starter Adam Wainwright and the St. Louis bullpen, but it wasn’t nearly enough in an 8-2 defeat. Matt Holliday matched them by himself with four this, and Allen Craig had a two-run homer for the Cardinals.
“We’re just not swinging well right now,” Yost said. “We’re swinging more at pitchers’ pitches, I think at times. Putting ourselves in a position where we’re not getting good swings on good pitches. Those things kind of go in cycles.”
The Cardinals are certainly riding one of those cycles in the other direction.
They came into the series struggling to score, but they’ve broken out of those doldrums in style. They matched a season high with 17 hits on Friday night en route to an 11-4 victory, and were nearly as proficient at the plate during the Saturday matinee.
All to the delight of a crowd of 37,240 that was primarily dressed in red.
“When you have a lineup like we have, just keep us in the game,” said Wainwright (6-7), who allowed two runs on four hits and two walks over seven sharp innings.
“That was a pretty dominant outing,” Matheny said. “You can tell he’s in a good place.”
The Cardinals certainly feel like they’re in a good place in Kansas City, where they improved to 26-15 in franchise history, and took a 3-2 lead in the season series.
“Everyone’s working their tail off,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “They’re doing what they need to do in terms of their work and preparation. They just need to take it to the field.”
St. Louis started its offensive onslaught in the third inning against Luis Mendoza (2-4), when Rafael Furcal worked a two-out walk and back-to-back singles by Jon Jay and Holliday made it 1-0.
Mendoza eventually escaped the jam, but everything fell apart in the fifth.
Daniel Descalso started a run of five straight singles in the fifth for St. Louis, and RBI base hits by Jay and Holliday knocked Mendoza from the game. Kelvin Herrera came in and promptly gave up another RBI single to Carlos Beltran, staking the Cardinals to a 4-0 lead.
“I think I struggled because maybe they were making adjustments to my sinker,” Mendoza said.
Furcal added another run with a single in the sixth, and even though Kansas City got two back in the bottom half on Alex Gordon’s run-scoring triple and Yuniesky Betancourt’s RBI groundout, St. Louis wasted little time in matching them with two more runs in the seventh inning.
That’s when Holliday doubled off reliever Greg Holland, and Craig belted a full-count pitch over the bullpen in left field for his ninth homer of the season.
All the offense sure took the pressure off Wainwright.
The former 20-game winner spent most of the afternoon looking like the guy who finished second in the 2010 Cy Young voting — before he needed season-ending Tommy John surgery last February.
Wainwright erased Gordon’s bunt single in the first by inducing a double play, and then set Kansas City down in order the next two innings. He didn’t allow a runner to reach second base until giving up two runs in the sixth, but he bounced back to work a scoreless seventh inning.
“He comes in hard with that cutter and mixes it up with his off-speed stuff,” said Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer, who went 0 for 4. “He was working both sides of the plate really good.”
NOTES: Hall of Fame golfer Tom Watson threw out the first pitch. … Royals C Salvador Perez got the day off after his return the previous night from a torn knee ligament. Manager Ned Yost expects him to catch Sunday. … RHP Lance Lynn will pitch the series finale Sunday for St. Louis. LHP Jonathan Sanchez will start for Kansas City.
Shawn Lewick allowed just one run on nine hits over nine innings, striking out ten and walking three but takes a no decision as the Hays Larks fall 2-1 in 10 innings in Derby Friday night.
The Twins scored a run in the second. The Larks tied it in the fifth on a Joe Bether RBI single and it would stay that way until the 10th when the Twins pushed across the winning run.
Ryan Mas takes the loss, allowing the one run on two hits.
Derby outhit Hays 11-3 as they improve to 6-11 overall and 6-10 in the Jayhawk League. The loss snaps the Larks four-game win streak and drops them to 13-5 and 7-5 in the Jayhawk League.
St. Louis Cardinals base runner Yadier Molina (4) scores past Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez (13) during the second inning at Kauffman Stadium. Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Salvador Perez gave the Kansas City Royals the faintest of silver linings Friday night.
The 22-year-old catcher came off the disabled list and hit a two-run homer, and even though the Royals were routed 11-4 by the cross-state rival St. Louis Cardinals, his season debut gave managed Ned Yost a reason to be optimistic going forward.
Even if Yost was quick to bemoan the rest of the night.
“Yeah,” Yost said, “we kind of ruined his welcome-home party with that game.”
Carlos Beltran hit two-run doubles his first two at-bats in his return to Kauffman Stadium, and the Cardinals racked up 10 runs in the first two innings. David Freese and Tyler Greene added two RBIs each, and everybody in the starting lineup had a hit before the fourth inning ended.
Most of the Cardinals’ offense came against Vin Mazzaro (3-2), who allowed seven runs, six hits, two walks and a hit batter while recording just four outs.
Mazzaro went six scoreless innings in a 3-2 win last Friday night at St. Louis.
“It was a tough one,” he said. “Things didn’t go my way. I didn’t get down in the zone.”
The result was plenty of offense for Joe Kelly (1-0), who gave up three runs over six shaky innings to pick up his first major league victory in his third career start.
“It feels pretty awesome,” Kelly said. “I didn’t have my best stuff, but my teammates were awesome tonight. Good defense, and they really hit the ball.”
Just about the only bright spot for Kansas City in the opener of a three-game series was the return of Perez, who had been on the DL since spring training with a torn knee ligament. He was cheered in his return and finished with two hits.
“It felt great,” he said through a translator.
The rest of the day felt downright miserable for Kansas City, starting with right-hander Felipe Paulino going on the DL with a torn elbow ligament early in the day, and getting worse with every pitch that Mazzaro threw to the plate.
His first three were balls to Rafael Furcal, and he eventually issued a walk. Jay was hit by a pitch, and Matt Holiday singled to load the bases for Beltran, whose two-run double off the wall in left field elicited a roar from a sellout crowd that included plenty of red shirts.
Yadier Molina added an RBI single, and Carpenter’s sacrifice fly made it 4-0.
Mazzaro managed to escape the inning, and Kansas City got a run back on three straight base hits, with Eric Hosmer’s slicing single to left bringing home Yuniesky Betancourt.
Mazzaro gave the run right back — and then some.
Furcal and Jay started the second with singles, and after Holliday flied out to left, Beltran delivered his second straight two-run double. Mazzaro was lifted from the game to a chorus of boos, and reliever Roman Colon didn’t fare much better as St. Louis took a 10-1 lead.
“You get into the second inning, down six, all the matchups go out the window,” Yost said. “Now you’re just trying to survive and not use your whole pitching staff.”
Beltran was responsible for much of the damage in his return to Kansas City.
The six-time All-Star was drafted by the Royals in 1995, and drove in 100 or more runs four times over six-plus seasons. But the Royals traded him to Houston in June 2004, anticipating that they wouldn’t be able to pay Beltran the princely sum that he would get on the open market.
He eventually signed a seven-year, $119 million contract with the Mets.
Beltran landed with the Cardinals this season after a short stop in San Francisco, and faced the Royals for the first time last week in St. Louis, going 6 for 14 and driving in a run.
Beltran picked up right where he left off on Friday night.
This time, the rest of the Cardinals’ offense joined in the fun.
“It’s a good feeling any time you can contribute,” Beltran said. “This place brings a lot of good memories. Kansas City was my home for six years and a half, and I got to meet some good people. I have a lot of good memories from here.”
NOTES: The Royals optioned LHP Tommy Hottovy to Triple-A Omaha. … St. Louis optioned OF Adron Chambers and 1B Matt Adams to Triple-A Memphis. … The Cardinals have won nine of their last 12 in Kansas City. … Freese and Holliday both reached base four times. … Royals relievers lead the major leagues with 268 1-3 innings pitched this season. … RHP Adam Wainwright starts Saturday for St. Louis. RHP Luis Mendoza goes to the mound for Kansas City.
The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion moved to 3-0 at their tournament in Omaha following a 12-2, five inning run-rule win over a team from New Mexico Friday morning. Hays scores two in the first then blows the game open with seven in the third. The Eagles had 12 hits and stole seven bases.
Jarrett Sanders hit a two-run homer and Trevor Henningson followed with a solo shot in the big frame.
Henningson had three hits, Hayden Hutchison doubled twice. They, along with Sanders and Riley Kaus all drove in two runs.
Henningson (4-0) was the winning pitcher, going all five innings allowing the two runs on two hits while striking out eight and walking just one.
The Eagles play two more games Saturday against the West Texas Outlaws and O’Fallon, Ill.
