A’s-Royals transplant themselves, good team wins

Seeing as the A's decided to play like the Royals, and the Royals managed to play like the A's, I'm just going to pretend that in my recap.

On the strength of 7 shutout innings by starter Jeremy Guthrie, the A's were shutout handily, handing them their 66th loss on the season. Tim Collins would come in in the 8th inning to strike out Donaldson, Pennington, and Crisp in order, and Greg Holland came in to finish the easy victory for the Royals, who improved to 62-53 on the season and remained firmly in the thick of the wild card hunt.

It looked like it was going to be a pitching duel until the 5th, when young Jarrod Parker walked Salvador Perez. After giving up a line drive double to Frenchy, Eric Hosmer would single home the first run for the good guys, making it 1-0 Royals. After a mound visit by Curt Young, Parker managed to walk Lorenzo Cain. I don't know what it is about the A's, but they can't seem to develop their young pitching. Something about injuries and ineffectiveness always seems to bite them. Plus, they traded for Jonathan Sanchez.

At any rate, the Royals offense, of course going with the "just enough" strategy, kept chugging along. A sacrifice fly by Chris Getz, a single by Alex Gordon, and an error by Jemile Weeks made it 4-0 Royals. Again, the A's run prevention just doesn't seem to be there. I guess that's why the Royals are the playoff team and the A's fans are in the "drive for five" sweepstakes with the Mariners, Astros, Brewers, and Twins. Finally, a Billy Butler sacrifice fly made it 5-0 Royals and that was enough. The A's always do manage to find a deep bullpen off the scrapheap, though, and relievers Jordan Norberto, Jerry Blevins, and Evan Scribner managed to shut us out the rest of the way. I guess that's something for them to build on.

At any rate, that's the game and it's a typical Royals win. Someone here on Royals Review will host the game thread at 7:10 sharp!