Royals Offense Stifled In Loss To M’s

There was hardly any offense to speak of for the Royals on Wednesday afternoon. Four Seattle pitchers held them to only four hits in a 2-1 loss at Kauffman Stadium. Second-year pitcher Zack Greinke held Seattle scoreless through six innings, before his back ups allowed two runs to cross the plate in the seventh.

Jamie Cerda was inserted in the top of the seventh and he allowed Brett Boone and former Royal Raul Ibanez to reach with singles to lead off the inning. Cerda was replaced with Mike MacDougal who was able to get a quick out. But his wild pitch to Miguel Olivo allowed Ibanez to score the first run of the game. Olivo then singled off MacDougal to score Inbanez, which gave the Mariners a 2-0 lead.

Calvin Pickering’s sacrifice fly after Matt Stairs’ triple in the bottom of the seventh inning accounted for Kansas City’s only run of the game. In the ninth inning, Kansas City put two men on with no outs, but failed to score a run.

Cerda was officially charged with both runs and got the loss. Greinke allowed just four hits with no walks and two strikeouts in the no decision.