LDN - Sports

Royals beat White Sox, end nine-game slide

[May 02, 2017] KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jason Vargas knows the Kansas City Royals are a much better team than they showed lately.

Vargas worked six strong innings Monday as the Royals topped the Chicago White Sox 6-1 to end a nine-game losing streak.

Vargas (4-1) permitted one run on five hits while throwing 96 pitches. He walked three and struck out one. He lost to the White Sox 12-1 last week, giving up four runs on seven hits over five innings.

"I think we're capable of putting together solid baseball games overall with the unit we have in here," Vargas said. "I don't think it has to do with one aspect or the other. When we're playing good baseball and making solid plays and throwing the ball solid and having solid at-bats, we're a really good ballclub.

"These first few weeks we haven't shown that as consistently as we'd like. The fact of the matter is the talent in this room is no different than when we won the World Series in '15 and when we went in '14. It's just a matter of putting good games together and getting on a roll and feeding off each other."

Kansas City's Eric Hosmer homered in the seventh with Christian Colon, who led off the inning with a single, along for the ride. Hosmer drove an 0-1 Dylan Covey pitch out the opposite way.

Covey (0-2) was removed after Hosmer's blast. He surrendered six runs on nine hits and two walks over 6 2/3 innings.

"He was keeping us in the ballgame," White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. "Obviously, Hosmer got him. But he kept pitching. He kept working. I thought he was a little better tonight. He was attacking the strike zone, kept himself in a much better position to continue the ballgame."

Royals rookie Jorge Bonifacio hit his second home run with Alex Gordon aboard with two outs in the fourth. After Gordon's opposite-field double, Bonifacio turned on a 2-1 Covey pitch and drove it an estimated 432 feet over the left field wall.

"Boni got us on the board," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "Vargy is out there pitching his tail off, gives up a run and we come right back and get two. And then Hoz comes back and puts the capper on it, gave us some extra breathing room."

The White Sox scored in the top of the fourth when Jacob May's two-out single scored Todd Frazier, who led off the inning with a walk and advanced to third on Omar Narvaez's single. May was 1-for-33 before the hit. May was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte after the loss.

The Royals upped their lead to 4-1 in the fifth on Salvador Perez's two-out, two-run single that struck the third base bag and bounced into left field.

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White Sox starting pitcher Dylan Covey (68) delivers a pitch in the first inning against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

"We finally caught a break," Yost said. "Salvy hits the ball down and hits the bag with the bases loaded. That was a big break for us."

Covey thought it was a bad break for him.

"I threw a good pitch to Perez," he said. "It kicked off the bag. I don't know what you call that. I got the result that I wanted. And then, to Hosmer, just kind of been pounding him in and gotten success with it and I let it kind of leak back over the middle of the plate."

Alcides Escobar and Mike Moustakas singled and Lorenzo Cain walked to load the bases. After Hosmer struck out, Perez plated Escobar and Moustakas with his single. Perez leads the Royals with 14 RBIs.

The White Sox threatened in the third after Tyler Saladino walked and Tim Anderson singled. Vargas got out of that jam by retiring Melky Cabrera on a fly ball to Bonifacio in right and striking out Jose Abreu.

NOTES: White Sox OF Avisail Garcia, who left in the fifth inning Sunday with a tight left groin, did not play. Manager Rick Renteria said it was just a precaution on a chilly night to give Garcia another day. ... OF Jorge Soler, who is on the Royals' disabled list with an oblique strain, is hitting .308 through eight rehab games with Triple-A Omaha. He went 2-for-2 for Omaha on Monday. ... Royals LHP Travis Wood has not pitched since April 24. He is 0-2 with an 18.56 ERA in nine relief appearances. ... White Sox LHP Jose Quintana and Royals LHP Danny Duffy are the Tuesday pitching probables for the second game of the four-game series.

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