Alex Gordon (photo/MLB)
Alex Gordon and Kendrys Morales hit solo homers, Edinson Volquez tossed seven solid innings and the Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics 5-2 on Friday.
Volquez (8-4) allowed one run on just three hits with three strikeouts and one walk. The right-hander, who won his fourth straight start, also reached 1,000 strikeouts for his career when he fanned Brett Lawrie in the sixth.
“He threw the ball extremely well tonight,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “A thousand strikeouts is a lot of strikeouts.”
Sam Fuld and Ben Zobrist had one RBI apiece for the Athletics, who had a five- game winning streak snapped. Jesse Hahn (5-6) gave up five runs — three earned — on nine hits over six innings.
“It was a weird night,” Hahn said. “I got behind a lot which led to plays that didn’t go our way.”
This was the first meeting between these teams since a wild weekend in Kansas City back in April that featured a number of bench-clearing incidents that led to suspension of the Royals’ reliever Kelvin Herrera, who threw behind Lawrie.
Herrera drew a five-game ban for his actions in the finale of that set. It was Lawrie, who took out Kansas City’s Alcides Escobar with a hard slide at second base in the opener.
Friday’s game was calm until the ninth when Franklin Morales hit Stephen Vogt with a pitch. Josh Phegley came on as a pinch-runner and scored on Zobrist’s double. Greg Holland recorded the final two outs for his 15th save of the season.
Vogt, who was hit just below the wrist, had an X-ray after the game, which did not reveal any broken bones.
Morales hit a solo homer in the second.
Kansas City tacked on three more runs in the third. Alex Rios singled, moved to second when Omar Infante grounded out, advanced to third on Escobar’s single and scored on Lorenzo Cain’s single. The runners moved up to second and third on a wild pitch.
Escobar crossed the plate when Eric Hosmer beat out an infield single. On the play, Cain raced home on Ike Davis’ throwing error.
The A’s got on the board in the bottom half when Marcus Semien reached on a fielder’s choice and scored on Fuld’s double.
Gordon’s solo homer in the sixth made it 5-1.
