BALTIMORE (AP) ? To most of the 11,659 fans in attendance and the rest of the baseball world, it was little more than a meaningless game between two teams long out of contention.
For Nick Dini, his family and friends, it was an unforgettable experience.
Dini hit his first major league homer in the seventh inning, and the Kansas City Royals stretched Baltimore?s latest losing streak to eight games, defeating the Orioles 5-4 Monday night.
The 26-year-old Dini played high school ball in New Jersey, and when he learned he was going to be playing at Camden Yards, he had his family spread the word. Around 40 people, including his parents, grandparents and sister, showed up to watch the rookie catcher.
They did not go away disappointed. One pitch after Nicky Lopez went deep off Gabriel Ynoa, Dini sent a drive over the center-field wall to make it 5-2. Never mind that it ended an 0-for-10 skid; more importantly, it was his first long ball in 15 plate appearances as a major leaguer.
?It was a good moment. You dream about it, you think about it all the time coming up through the minor leagues then it happens and you?re just floating around the bases,? Dini said. ?To be able to do it so close to home and have so many people here made it really special.?
Whit Merrifield of the Kansas City Royals scores in the sixth inning ahead of the tag of Pedro Severino of the Baltimore Orioles on Monday. GREG FIUME/GETTY IMAGES/TNS
Royals manager Ned Yost, who turned 65 Monday, loved watching the 2015 14th-round draft pick hit it out.
?It is nice to see because they?ve worked so hard to get here and it?s been a lifelong dream to play in the big leagues,? Yost said. ?It?s always a pleasure and a privilege to see a kid hit his first big league home run.
Kansas City (45-80) won for only the sixth time in its last 22 games, and Baltimore (39-86) absorbed its 13th loss in 14 games. The only team with fewer wins than these two struggling clubs is Detroit.
Orioles starter John Means (8-9) kept Kansas City hitless until Lopez led off the sixth inning with a single to spark a three-run uprising that wiped out a 1-0 deficit.
Jorge Lopez (2-7) allowed one run and two hits over five innings and Ian Kennedy, the last of five Kansas City relievers, gave up a home run to Rio Ruiz in the ninth before recording his 22nd save.
Jonathan Villar also homered for the Orioles, who have endured skids of five games (twice), six games and 10 games this season.
SKIDDING CUTHBERT
Royals 1B Chestor Cuthbert went 0 for 4 and is hitless in last 34 at-bats since Aug. 8.
HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
Means and KC?s Bubba Starling, who played together at Gardner-Edgerton High in Kansas, faced each other in the big leagues for the first time. After their senior year, Starling signed with KC as the fifth overall pick in the 2011 draft and Means went to college after nixing a chance to sign with Atlanta.
