With a worn out bullpen on their hands, Kansas City certainly needed a starter to go deep in the game on Saturday evening in Arlington. Well Sean O`Sullivan lasted 5.2 innings, but it was far from pretty as the burly starting pitcher allowed 10 runs on 15 hits as the Rangers routed the Royals 10-1. The baseballs were flying off the Rangers bats into the Texas sky as the Rangers combined to hit five home runs off O`Sullivan.
The Texas batters started the game much like they did on Friday evening, taking a 5-0 lead after the first two innings. In the second inning, Mitch Moreland, Mike Napoli, and Endy Chavez went back-to-back-to-back with solo home runs. Never good, especially when you realize that was the bottom of the Texas batting order.
Meanwhile Rangers starter Matt Harrison pitched six innings of shutout baseball, giving up just five hits. Harrison imprved to 5-4, while O`Sullivan fell to 2-4. Ironically in a 10-1 game, Rangers reliever Yoshinori Tateyama qualified for the save, his first of the season.
The lone Kansas City run came in the seventh inning, as Matt Treanor grounded out with the bases loaded, scoring Billy Butler. Butler, who had previously reached on an error, lead the Royals attack with two hits on the evening. As a team, Kansas City combined for just seven hits. The boxscore can be viewed here.
Kansas City fell to 23-28, while Texas is 27-25. The rubber match of the series takes place Sunday at 2:05, with Danny Duffy (0-0 3.86 ERA) looking for his first careen win against Alexi Ogando (5-0 1.81).