. Gore ran for Soler, stole third and scored on Cuthbert's single between three fielders in right field to give the Royals their first lead of the game.''Cuthbert got a break on that one, hit a pop-up into no-man's land,'' Yost said. ''That's the first break we've caught in a while, but I'll take it.'' Detroit manager Ron Gardenhire agreed with Yost's assessment of the go-ahead run.''I guess it's no-man's land,'' Gardenhire said. ''Somebody has to take charge on the ball. With us playing the infield in, it bloops out there. The ball landed and that was just a break for them.'' It was the first time all season the Kansas City won when trailing after six innings.Mondesi had rounded first aggressively on his first two hits before heading back to the bag. With his club down a run, he didn't hesitate on his last hit.''Every time I hit the ball I run hard,'' Mondesi said. ''When I hit it I saw the left fielder was in the gap, so I thought I had a chance. I just ran hard.'' Scott Barlow (2-2) pitched a scoreless eighth inning to get the win, and Ian Kennedy got the last three outs for his fifth save.The Tigers' bullpen wasted a brilliant effort from Spencer Turnbull. He scattered four hits and two walks with five strikeouts over six innings. It was only the third time in 14 starts that Turnbull had not allowed a run.Jakob Junis had a quality start for Kansas City, allowing two runs and five hits - including solo homers by Nicholas Castellanos and Brandon Dixon - with five strikeouts in seven innings.''We had a pretty good game plan and we executed it,'' Junis said. ''We had a couple of mistakes, but luckily they were solos. That kept us in the game. I wanted to challenge them. I got behind a couple of times. I didn't want to put anybody on with a free base. Those were huge.'' The Tigers got to Junis in the first on a 427-foot home run by Castellanos to left-center. It was Castellanos' 100th career homer, all with the Tigers. It marked the ninth time in 14 starts that Junis gave up a run in the first inning.Dixon hit a 447-foot homer in the fourth, into the fountains 20 feet beyond where Castellanos' homer traveled, to put the Tigers up 2-0.''(Junis) made some mistakes, center-cut two fastballs, but he did an awesome job of keeping us in the game,'' Yost said. ''He gave us an opportunity to come back and win the game.'' Following Turnbull's departure, Ryan O'Hearn led off the seventh with his sixth home run of the season. He broke an 0-for-15 slump with his 439-foot blast to right.TRAINER'S ROOMRoyals 3B Hunter Dozier was eligible to come off the 10-day injured list, but he is not close to being ready. He's been on the IL since June 3, retroactive to May 31. Manager Ned Yost said, ''We're going to be working him back into it, making sure everything is functional and feeling good. We've got to make sure that he's healthy, 100 percent. I don't know if we'll want to send him out on a rehab. When he's ready to go we'll make that decision.'' Tigers: SS Niko Goodrum was removed from the game following the top of the third after he fouled a pitch off his knee. He left with a right knee contusion. He finished the at-bat with a strikeout and was replaced by Gordon Beckham in the bottom of the third.UP NEXTThe Tigers will send LHP Daniel Norris (2-5, 4.60 ERA) to the mound in the second game of the series. The Royals will counter with LHP Danny Duffy (3-3, 4.68 ERA). Duffy was hit on the right kneecap in his last start against Boston. The line drive bounced to third for the final out of the second inning. He came back out for the third but retired just one of six batters he faced in the inning before being pulled.---More baseball coverage: www.apnews.com/MLB and www.twitter.com/-Sports)
Royals chase elusive series win as Tigers visitFLMLosing can cause managers to get philosophical. Seeing defeats turn into lost series -- 16 in a row, to be exact -- and you might have another Plato on your hands.The Kansas City Royals have gone 0-14-2 in their past 16 series. To make matters worse, they have lost 14 straight rubber games of series, dating back to the end of May 2018."You get in situations and you break the game down minutely and there's things that happen that you don't understand and they're great learning experiences, if you will," Kansas City manager Ned Yost told reporters after the Royals' 5-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox in a rubber game Sunday -- clinching Kansas City's fifth straight series loss.The Royals' latest chance for a series win begins Tuesday, when the Detroit Tigers come to Kansas City for the opener of a three-game set. The Tigers are 5-1 in six games against the Royals in Detroit this season. The teams have yet to meet in Kansas City.But before shifting his focus to the Tigers, Yost further dissected Sunday's loss, and in particular Glenn Sparkman's approach to facing Chicago's Yoan Moncada with two outs and a runner in scoring position in the seventh inning and the Royals trailing 2-1. Moncada already had two hits against Sparkman, but Jose Abreu was on deck. So Sparkman pitched to Moncada, who laced his third hit of the day, an RBI single to left giving the White Sox an insurance run."Last thing you want is to make a pitch in the strike zone where he's going to get a hit off you," Yost said. "And, of course, he tried to bounce a curveball that didn't bounce. He left it over the plate, in the strike zone, and he ended up getting a hit." The Tigers themselves have lost three straight series, to the Braves, Rays and Twins. Their latest series loss came when Minnesota trounced them 12-2 on Sunday in the rubber match. The frustration for Detroit was epitomized by Nicholas Castellanos being doubled up at second base after heading for home with one out on a line drive to right. The ball was caught by Max Kepler, who threw to second for the easy double play.That was in the sixth inning and with the Tigers already down by 10.Though they had their chances in their last three series against three potential playoff teams, the Tigers have had their struggles. They've fared better the last few weeks than they did during their 0-9 homestand in May, when they lost four times by five or more runs. They're aware that there's still plenty of room for improvement."We knew this was going to be tough," Detroit manager Ron Gardenhire said following the Sunday loss. "We had a tough road trip. All we can do is keep competing and trying. We've got infielders all over the place, outfielders all over the place. We've got basically four starters. It's a challenge right now." The Tigers will throw Spencer Turnbull (3-5, 3.01 ERA) against Jakob Junis (4-6, 5.63) on Tuesday in a matchup of right-handers.Turnbull has faced the Royals twice -- both this season -- without a decision. He's allowed three earned runs in 13 innings, good for a 2.08 ERA. Junis is 6-1 with a 3.27 ERA against the Tigers in nine appearances (eight starts) in his career. He's only faced Detroit once this season, allowing three runs in six innings without factoring in the decision.Yost sees Junis as part of the long-term future of the Royals. And he hopes that pitchers like Sparkman can be part of it, as well. If so, Yost hopes that games like Sunday pay off down the line."Hopefully, when we get in that situation to compete for a championship, he's going to get in these situations and know how to handle them and to pitch accordingly," Yost said.--Field Level Media
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