Kris Bubic took a shutout into the seventh inning and the Kansas City Royals won their first series of the season with a 4-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday. Bubic (2-0) allowed five hits, walked one and struck out eight in 6 2/3 innings. His streak of 12 shutout innings was snapped when Ryan Mountcastle tripled to lead off the seventh and scored on Bubic’s wild pitch one out later. Bobby Witt Jr. had three of the Royals’ 13 hits, falling a home run shy of the cycle. Salvador Perez, Mark Canha and Maikel Garcia each had two hits and scored a run. The Royals are 4-and-5. They host the Minnesota Twins tonight.
The St. Louis Cardinals dropped a pair of games against the Boston Red Sox during a doubleheader at Fenway Park yesterday. The Cards blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth during a 5-4, ten-inning loss in game one. Pedro Pages drove in three runs, while Ryan Fernandez was charged with the loss in relief. St. Louis was crushed 18-7 in the second game. Thomas Saggese homered, and Miles Mikolas was tagged for the loss after surrendering eight earned runs and one unearned run on 11 hits in two-and-two-thirds innings. The 4-and-5 Cardinals send Matthew Liberatore to the mound against the Pirates tonight.
Iván Herrera, who made Cardinals’ history when he became the first catcher to mash three home runs in a game on Wednesday, went down with a third-inning injury to his left knee that could cost him time. Herrera, whose knee appeared to buckle when he briefly broke from third base on a foul pop, needed help from trainers to get back to the third-base dugout.
