By MATT PIKE
Corey Seager homered and singled to help lead the Texas Rangers to a 4-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium, pushing the Rangers to reach .500, at 34-34, for the first time since May 1st.
Texas jumped ahead 3-0 through the first three innings as Brandon Nimmo hit an RBI double in the first inning, scoring Seager, Elias Díaz’s squeeze bunt single in the second, that brought home Ezequiel Duran, and Seager hitting his ninth home run of the season to lead off the third inning into the right field bullpen off Royals starter Michael Wacha.
Starting the fourth inning, Kansas City loaded the bases against Rangers starting pitcher Kumar Rocker and scored a pair of runs on a double-play ground out by Michael Massey, scoring Vinnie Pasquantino, and Kameron Misner’s RBI single, marking his first hit with the Royals, bringing Jac Caglianone across home plate cut the Texas lead to one, leading 3-2.
Evan Carter's RBI single in the sixth inning, scoring Duran capped the scoring. Wacha, who took the loss and fell to 4-5 on the season, allowed four runs and nine hits in seven innings with one walk and two strikeouts. Kansas City has lost six straight games in which Wacha has started by a combined 10 runs. He has received three or fewer runs of support in each start.
The Royals had just six hits in the loss. Caglianone was 2-for-4 with a run scored. In nine June games, he has reached base safely in 22 of 36 plate appearances. Pasquantino was 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. Carter Jensen was 1-for-4 with a double.
Next, the Royals will stay home at Kauffman Stadium to host the Houston Astros. Luinder Avila (1-2, 4.02 ERA, 28K's) takes the mound for the Royals against Tatsuya Imai (3-3, 5.24 ERA, 36K's) for the Astros. First pitch is at 7:10pm, pregame will air at 6:30 on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
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