Daily Clips
May 7, 2018
LOCAL
Junis K's 8 vs. Tigers as KC claims first series
Right-hander beats Detroit for third time this season
May 6, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Merrifield runs wild, ties career high with 3 SBs
May 6, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
It took until May, but the Royals won their first series of the season
May 6, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
Q&A: Royals starter Danny Duffy discusses return to the stretch after early-season struggles
May 6, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic
MINORS
'Cakes Top Chasers 5-2 For 3rd Straight Win
Frank Schwindel slams team-best fifth longball in defeat
May 6, 2018By Scott Popp/Omaha Storm Chasers
Naturals come up short in North Little Rock
May 6, 2018By NW Arkansas Naturals
Rocks suffer heartbreak in series finale loss
Early lead slips away, ninth inning rally falls short
May 6, 2018By Wilmington Blue Rocks
NATIONAL
MRI confirms Kershaw has biceps tendinitis
Dodgers ace lands on 10-day DL, to rehab in Los Angeles
May 6, 2018By Ken Gurnick/MLB.com
Molina to miss a month after surgery
April 6, 2018By Joe Trezza/MLB.com
deGrom on DL, to miss one start
May 6, 2018By Anthony DiComo/MLB.com
Silver linings: One reason to watch teams that are out of it
May 7, 2018By Michael Beller/Sports Illustrated
MLB TRANSACTIONS
May 7, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Junis K's 8 vs. Tigers as KC claims first series
Right-hander beats Detroit for third time this season
May 6, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
One could argue the Royals had the perfect pitcher to capture their first series victory of 2018.
Right-hander Jakob Junis continued his dominance of the Tigers this season, throwing seven strong innings, and the Royals beat the Tigers, 4-2, Sunday afternoon to take three out of four in the series.
Junis gave up eight hits and two runs and matched a career high with eight strikeouts. He beat the Tigers for the third time this season.
"We go in against them with a pretty good game plan every time," Junis said of the Tigers. "We've executed it every time. They didn't have some of their guys that might give us some trouble. But we were attacking. The slider was working, had a lot of strikeouts, strikeouts in big situations."
Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas, who had three RBIs, said the rest of baseball may be just starting to figure out Junis, now 4-2 with a 3.18 ERA.
"Yeah, I think so," Moustakas said. "We get to see him all the time so we know how good his stuff is. We know how good he is when he is on the mound. I kind of like it that way, that people don't know what they're getting from him. He comes in and is just nasty. He gave up a couple of home runs his last outing but comes out today and is not even fazed."
Added second baseman Whit Merrifield, "He's dynamite. I think people are starting to take notice. But it doesn't matter. If he's spotting up, good luck."
Merrifield manufactured a run in the first. He legged out a hustle double after his grounder caromed off third baseman Niko Goodrum, then stole third and scored on shallow fly to left by Moustakas.
Merrifield was at it again in the third. He hit a two-out single, again off Goodrum, then stole second. Merrifield stole third when the Tigers, playing in the shift, didn't defend the bag. Jorge Soler, who had walked, stole second when the Tigers didn't cover second base. Moustakas made the Tigers pay with a two-run double.
MOMENT THAT MATTERED
The Tigers had a chance to carve into a 4-1 deficit in the fifth off Junis. With two outs, Leonys Martin skied a fly ball to center that Abraham Almonte lost in the sun for a double. Junis then walked Jose Iglesias on four pitches. After a lengthy battle with Victor Martinez, Junis got the strikeout on a 3-2 slider.
"[Martinez] battled, too," Junis said. "It was a long at-bat. On 3-2, yeah, I was thinking slider. We had thrown some sliders early. Threw in a few fastballs late. He fouled off a slider, I think, and I wasn't going to get beat [without using] my best pitch, so I threw the slider."
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
Sunday was the Royals' annual "Salute to the Negro Leagues" as the players and coaches wore throwback Kansas City Monarchs uniforms. Negro Leagues Museum president Bob Kendrick also presented the 2017 Monarch Awards for pitcher and player of the year to Danny Duffy and Merrifield.
It also was "Dressed to the Nines" day as fans were encouraged to dress their best.
HE SAID IT
"He gets the ball, throws the next pitch. It's fun to play defense behind him. It gets you more into the game." -- Moustakas on Junis' quick pace to pitching after a 2-hour, 16-minute game, the fastest time for a Royals game this season
UP NEXT
After an off-day Monday, the Royals embark on a six-game road trip that begins in Baltimore on Tuesday at 6:05 p.m. CT. Left-hander Duffy (0-4, 5.63 ERA) takes the mound for the Royals. The Orioles will counter with right-hander Dylan Bundy (1-4, 3.76 ERA). Duffy allowed four home runs -- three to Mookie Betts -- in a loss to Boston last Wednesday. Duffy gave up 10 hits and five runs over 6 2/3 innings.
Merrifield runs wild, ties career high with 3 SBs
May 6, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
If you know anything about Royals second baseman Whit Merrifield's game, you know this was it: Pester the opponent relentlessly with his speed and daring.
Merrifield's imprints were all over the Royals' 4-2 win over the Tigers on Sunday as he delivered two hits, including a hustle double, scored two runs and matched a career high with three stolen bases.
Royals manager Ned Yost calls Merrifield "an action guy."
Third baseman Mike Moustakas added, "He's such a good ballplayer. He gets on base, steals bases, hits for average, hits for power, and does it all. When he's going good, he helps us win ballgames. You saw what he can do today. He's a special player."
Merrifield led off the Royals' first inning with a hard ground ball off third baseman Niko Goodrum. The ball caromed into left field, and Merrifield hustled into second with a double.
Merrifield then stole third base and scored on a shallow fly to left by Moustakas.
"That's my job," Merrifield said. "That's what I do. I get on and cause havoc, try to make it easier for these guys to drive me in."
Merrifield went back to work in the third inning with a two-out grounder again off Goodrum's glove for a single. Merrifield promptly stole second. And then, with the Tigers in a shift and no one near the third-base bag, Merrifield stole third with left-hander Matthew Boyd standing helpless on the mound with the baseball in his hand.
Moments later, Jorge Soler, who had walked, also stole second base with Boyd holding the ball as the Tigers, still in the shift, had no one near second base.
Merrifield and Soler both scored on Moustakas' double.
"There were two outs, and [Boyd] got two strikes relatively quick," Merrifield said. "Boyd did a better job of holding me on that at-bat. But [the count] got to 3-2, I saw they were shifted way over, and I took third with the mindset that if I'm on third, that slider he throws, it might be in the back of his head, 'OK I can't bounce this pitch.'
"Then he left it up, and Moose put a barrel on it. That was my plan."
That two-run double put the Royals up 3-0, all they would need.
It took until May, but the Royals won their first series of the season
May 6, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
For the first time this season, the Royals secured a series victory. They beat the Tigers 4-2 on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium in a game that lasted just 2 hours and 16 minutes, thanks in part to another efficient outing from starting pitcher Jakob Junis and the run-manufacturing skills of second baseman Whit Merrifield.
Junis limited the Tigers to two runs and eight hits in seven-plus innings. He struck out eight batters along the way, using his slider as the put-away pitch on each.
Merrifield jumpstarted the Royals' offense in the first inning. He rolled a ground ball down the line that took an in-between hop to Tigers third baseman Niko Goodrum. After the ball was deflected into left field, Merrifield sprinted effortlessly to second base for a double.
Minutes later, following Jorge Soler's strikeout, Merrifield took off for third base on Tigers starter Matthew Boyd’s first offering to Mike Moustakas. The steal played perfectly into the Royals’ hands; when Moustakas lofted a fly ball to shallow left field, Merrifield charged home to score the game’s first run.
“That’s my job,” he said. “That’s what I do. I get on and cause havoc, try to make it easier for these guys to drive me in.”
Merrifield hasn’t had the chance this season to flaunt much of his speed, which he turned into 32 doubles, six triples and an American League-best 34 stolen bases last season. Opponents have tempered it. He entered Sunday with four steals, tied for 26th in baseball with 13 others, and had been caught stealing twice. His double in the first inning was his seventh of the year.
But against Boyd on Sunday afternoon, the script flipped. Merrifield flaunted his fleet-footedness, matching his career high with three stolen bases in the game.
Merrifield’s aggressiveness sparked a three-run third inning, too. The Royals reached base four times in a row with two outs. Merrifield was the first, singling on a ground ball deflected again by Goodrum. He stole second base ahead of Soler’s five-pitch walk. When Boyd threw a high 2-2 curveball to Moustakas, Merrifield took advantage of a defensive shift to steal third base. Soler followed Merrifield’s lead for another uncontested stolen base.
Moustakas smacked a two-run double into the center-field wall one pitch later.
“Really heads-up by both of them. Especially Soler on the second one,” Moustakas said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that got me in a good position because (Boyd) wasn’t able to spike a slider then.’ I was able to get a good pitch to hit.”
Then Salvador Perez skied a fly ball to left field. Iglesias backed into the outfield to attempt a catch but lost sight of the ball. He dropped to the grass and covered his head as the ball landed a few feet to his left.
By the time Jones scooped it up, Moustakas had scored the Royals’ fourth run.
It was all the insurance they needed. The Royals, after taking three of four from the Tigers, improved to 11-23.
Q&A: Royals starter Danny Duffy discusses return to the stretch after early-season struggles
May 6, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic
Frustrated by his performance and puzzled by his results, Royals starter Danny Duffy is poised to make another slight adjustment Tuesday when he takes the mound against the Orioles in Baltimore.
He will likely work exclusively out of the stretch position, he told The Athletic on Sunday.
Duffy worked solely out of the stretch in 2016 and 2017 while posting a 3.64 ERA in 326 innings. The move came after a sojourn to the bullpen in 2016 spurred a career breakout.
In April, however, Duffy returned to the windup after believing he was tipping pitches out of the stretch. He posted back-to-back strong starts in mid-April, including six scoreless innings in Toronto on April 17. Yet his ERA has skyrocketed after allowing 15 earned runs and six homers in his last three starts. After allowing four homers in Boston in his last start, Royals manager Ned Yost deemed it a mechanical issue.
“When he’s straight on line, the action, location and command of his changeup, it’s unhittable,” Yost said. “The problem he’s running into is he’s starting to fall off before he delivers the pitch.”
Duffy is 0-4 with a 5.63 ERA. The Royals are winless in his seven starts. On Sunday, however, he said the mechanical adjustments would be minimal.
“I’m just going to keep pushing,” he said. “I’m not going to make any revolutionary change.”
For now, the numbers offer a strange mix: Duffy has 34 strikeouts in 38 1/3 innings, suggesting that his arsenal of pitches have been solid at times. Yet opponents are making hard contact 41 percent of the time, according to batted-ball data at FanGraphs. That would represent the highest rate of Duffy’s career. (His career average is 31 percent.) Likewise, he’s induced soft contact just 13.9 percent of the time, a career-low.
On Sunday, Duffy spoke to The Athletic about his latest adjustment — a return to the stretch.
The Athletic: Has there been anything significant with [pitching coach Cal Eldred] that you’ve been working on?
Duffy: We’ve been back in the stretch a little bit more than out of the windup. I think I was a little bit too consumed if I was tipping or not out of the stretch. There’s nothing really as far as delivery [changes] goes. I figured out what I was doing that was possibly giving away what I was throwing. But we fixed that. There’s been a ton of mishits, outside of the fourth inning in Boston the other day. But I just feel like we gave it a shot, tried to make adjustments; I’ll probably be ultimately going out of the stretch.
The Athletic: You’ve said you think your stuff has been pretty good. So you feel like it’s been some isolated mistakes that you’ve paid for and some mechanicals issues, but the overall stuff is still there?
Duffy: I had the surgery [a procedure to remove loose bodies in his elbow] that I needed in the offseason, and I haven’t felt any pain. So you’d think that would translate into success. But I have had really good innings; I’ve been punching out a lot of people. But I’ve also been giving up a lot of hard-hit balls.
It’s been a weird start. But I’m just going to keep pushing. I’m not going to make any revolutionary change. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and stay through every baseball that I throw.
The Athletic: Did Cal suggest going back to the stretch?
Duffy: Yeah, this is really the first time that I’ve really not made an adjustment on my own. [Former pitching coach Dave Eiland] was here to supplement anything and refine everything. I’d have these ideas sometimes that I would just ride with and I’d buy into completely. And Dave was the guy that said: “OK, you can do this. But here’s how you’re going to do it.”
Cal and I had a talk yesterday, and he’s absolutely right. Why drastically change anything when you’ve had so much success out of the stretch? We gave it a shot, and it’s not for lack of trying. When you’re not doing well, you need to change stuff. It’s not about panic or anything. It’s about, “Hey, the stuff is there. How can we do everything to be consistent with it?”
MINORS
'Cakes Top Chasers 5-2 For 3rd Straight Win
Frank Schwindel slams team-best fifth longball in defeat
May 6, 2018By Scott Popp/Omaha Storm Chasers
Storm Chasers first baseman Frank Schwindel hit his team-leading fifth roundtripper of the season, while New Orleans shortstop JT Riddle drove in three in the Baby Cakes 5-2 victory on Sunday afternoon at Werner Park.
Prior to the contest, the Omaha franchise honored former Omaha Royals beat writer Steve Pivovar by the press box at Werner Park the Steve Pivovar Press Box.
New Orleans took a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning thanks to two RBI singles and a sac fly. Riddle drove in two more runs in the fifth to give the Baby Cakes a 5-0 lead.
The Storm Chasers later got on the board in the fifth. LF Jack Lopez smashed his fifth double of the season before C Parker Morin drove him in with a double of his own. Schwindel later homered in the seventh to make the score 5-2.
Storm Chaser starter Heath Fillmyer (6.0 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 4 K) suffered his second loss of the season. Relievers Kevin Lenik (2.0 IP, K) and Mike Broadway (1.0 IP, BB) combined to throw three hitless frames for Omaha.
Trevor Richards (7.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 K) took home the victory for the Baby Cakes with a quality outing and Severino Gonzalez (2.0 IP, H, BB, K) pitched the last two frames to record his third save of the season. Richards at one point retired 12 consecutive Omaha batters.
The two teams return to Werner Park for the series finale Monday evening. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. CT. RHP Scott Barlow (1-0, 0.75) is anticipated to get the nod for Omaha, with New Orleans expected to give the ball to LHP Dillon Peters (NR).
Naturals come up short in North Little Rock
May 6, 2018By NW Arkansas Naturals