Mike Moustakas Finds The Stroke As Royals Hang In To Defeat Yankees

After struggling for the majority of his time at the plate during his first season with the Royals, Mike Moustakas had one of his better offensive games of his young career going 3-for-3 as the Royals held on to defeat the Yankees 5-4, in doing so they Royals split the season series against the Yankees.

Things got tense in the ninth inning as Joakim Soria labored through 40 pitches in the ninth inning, but held on to give the Royals the win. After Brett Gardner flew out to begin the inning, Soria gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases for Robinson Cano. Cano hit a sac fly to bring the Yankees within one. After loading the bases again on a walk to Nick Swisher, Soria got birthday boy Jorge Posada (40) to strike out to end the game. For Soria it was his 22nd save of the year.

Offensively the Royals had a big third inning, in which they scored four runs on four hits. Headlining the inning was a three-run home run to center by Alex Gordon, his 15th round tripper of the season. With the shot, he now has a career high 62 RBI. Not to be outdone, Billy Butler later hit his 15th home run as well on a controversial home run to left field that appeared to fall short of the second line of fencing in the outfield. Royals fans were not upset with the calls by the umpires though, as Kansas City took a 4-2 lead at the time. All five Royals runs were charged to New York starter Bartolo Colon who fell to 8-7 with the loss.

Picking up the win for Kansas City was Bruce Chen, Chen went six innings and allowed three runs on seven hits. Chen improved his mark to 8-5 with the win. The Royals moved to 51-73 with the victory and are at home again tomorrow to face old teammate Mike Aviles and the Boston Red Sox.