The Texas Rangers needed eight runs and a fantastic first five innings from Yu Darvish to keep the Kansas City Royals at bay, winning 8-4 Monday at Kauffman Stadium.
Darvish went seven total innings and didn't allow a base runner until Texas had two outs through the bottom of the sixth, when Darvish walked the Royals' Johnny Giavotella. After beating up on Kansas City starting pitcher Bruce Chen for six hits, four of which were home runs by that point, the Rangers had a 6-0.
Darvish gave up three earned runs and three hits on the day. He improved to 14-9 on the year.
With David Murphy and Nelson Cruz on base in the top of the second inning, Geovany Soto knocked one over the fence to put Texas on top 3-0. Josh Hamilton hit a solo shot in the third before Adrian Beltre and Cruz hit back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning to give Darvish a nice cushion.
But with a perfect game going for Darvish, the Royals jumped on the Rangers' starter with two outs in the sixth. Kansas City scored two runs on a Tony Abreu triple with two on base. Abreu scored on an Alex Gordon double in the same inning. Abreu also knocked Brayan Pena across home plate in the eighth inning, bringing the score to 6-4.
The Rangers added two insurance runs in the top of the ninth thanks to a Michael Young homer.
Moving to 80-64, the Rangers kept some distance between themselves and the Oakland Athletics for the AL West lead. Kansas City fell to 60-74.
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