The Royals opened a series with the White Sox Monday night and lost 5-2, giving the Royals their 16th loss in the last 20 games against division rivals. Royals starter Kyle Davies pitched as well as he has all season, striking out a career high nine, but an error by shortstop Alcides Escobar led to two runs in the sixth inning breaking a 2-2 tie. Davies is now 1-9 on the season and hasn’t won since April 19th against Minnesota.

St. Charles native Mark Buehrle won for the 22nd time over Kansas City. The only pitchers with more are Bert Blyleven (34), Roger Clemens (25) and Nolan Ryan (24). It was Buehrle’s first win since June 9th, but the Sox have won 11 of his last 13 games that he has started…he finally got run support.

Jim Thome hit his 596th career home run and Joe Nathan picked up the save for the second day in a row to lift the Minnesota Twins to a 4-3 win over the Royals.

Thome’s tiebreaking three-run drive came off Felipe Paulino in the sixth inning, leaving him four shy of becoming the eighth player to hit 600 home runs.

Jeff Francoeur homered and Melky Cabrera added two hits for the Royals. Paulino (1-3) struck out eight in seven innings, yielding four runs and seven hits.

Brian Duensing (7-7) gave up three runs and seven hits in 6 1/3 innings for the Twins, who started a crucial 12-game homestand by taking three of four from the Royals, dropping them further back in the NL Central.

The Royals come out of the All Star break on a sour note losing at Minnesota 8-4. Relief pitcher Blake Wood walked three and hit another batter while being charged with four runs in the seventh inning in relief of Bruce Chen who fell to 5-3.

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Alex Gordon’s hopes to reach the Major League All-Star Game fell short on Thursday when Chicago first baseman Paul Konerko was voted by fans for the final spot on the American League team. Konerko finished with 8.4 million votes.

Alex Gordon thanks the fans for their support

The final vote numbers for the other players were not released, but Gordon, finished third behind Victor Martinez of Detroit.