Austin Hays homered and doubled and starting pitcher Tyler Wells worked into the seventh inning as the Baltimore Orioles edged the visiting Kansas City Royals 3-2 on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series.
Gunnar Henderson rapped three singles and scored a run for the Orioles, who have won back-to-back games for the first time since May 24-25.
Wells (5-2) mostly cruised until retiring the first two batters in the seventh and later leaving with the bases loaded. Felix Bautista, who was Baltimore’s third reliever used, pitched a perfect ninth with two strikeouts for his 17th save.
The Royals have lost four games in a row and seven of their last eight.
Hays hit the first pitch from Royals starter Daniel Lynch for his seventh homer of the season.
Lynch (0-2) took the loss, giving up three runs on eight hits and a walk in six innings. He struck out four.
The Orioles made it 2-0 in the second. Henderson, who was the hero with a go-ahead home run in Thursday’s comeback win at Milwaukee, singled and stole second before scoring on Jorge Mateo’s single.
Kansas City responded in the third with Nicky Lopez smacking a one-out triple and coming home on Nick Pratto’s sacrifice fly.
Hays and Anthony Santander doubled in the fifth to produce the third Baltimore run.
Kansas City began a seventh-inning rally with two-out singles by Maikel Garcia and Michael Massey. Then Wells issued his lone walk to Drew Waters and was pulled.
The Royals got a run on reliever Mike Baumann’s wild pitch before he struck out Lopez to halt the threat.
Wells finished with four strikeouts, giving up two runs and five hits in his 6 2/3 innings.
Kansas City finished with seven hits, but no Royal had more than one.
–Field Level Media
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