For three innings Friday night it looked like the Kansas City Royals would go down to the defending World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Madison Bumgarner cruised through the first three innings not allowing a hit before the Royals attacked him the second time through the lineup.
Down 3-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning, Kansas City came through with four runs of their own, capped by a two-run home run by Jeff Francoeur. The Royals added four more in the fifth, and five in the sixth to push the game wide open.
Vin Mazzaro, the fifth starter in the Royals rotation, went four innings, allowing three runs on nine hits. Bumgarner was chased after pitching four and a third innings, giving up eight runs on ten hits. He fell to 1-4, while Mazzaro improved to 1-1 in spring training.
The bullpen for Kansas City consisted of an inning each from Kanekoa Texeira, Jeremy Jeffress, Louis Coleman, Robinson Tejeda, and Joakim Soria. The grouping gave up no more Giants runs and only allowed four hits the rest of the way. It was nice to see Jeffress pitch a scoreless inning after the bad outing he had the previous day trying to close out the game against Cleveland.
Leading the way for Kansas City offensively was Alex Gordon with three hits and a walk, while driving in four runs. Melky Cabrera, Kila Ka`aihue, Mitch Maier, and Brayan Pena all had two hits a piece in the win. Pena, who will split time at catcher with Lucas May, had a double and a triple for Kansas City.
Kansas City improves to 16-10-1, while San Francisco fell to 18-11. The Royals are fourth in the Cactus League standings, but actually have the best spring record of all American League teams.
The Royals will be taking on the Arizona Diamondbacks this afternoon in Talking Stick. Luke Hochevar will be getting his final work of spring training as he prepares to take the mound Thursday for Opening Day.