Royals snap seven-game losing skid

Sports

August 7, 2019 - 10:14 AM

Jorge Soler (12) of the Kansas City Royals celebrates with teammates after a 6-2 victory against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston Tuesday Night. ADAM GLANZMAN/GETTY IMAGES/TNS

BOSTON (AP) — Jorge Soler didn’t have to wait for the question about the Green Monster to be finished before breaking into a wide smile.

Soler hit a pair of long two-run homers over the Monster, Jakob Junis pitched six effective innings and the Kansas City Royals snapped their seven-game losing streak by beating the Boston Red Sox 6-2 on Tuesday night.

“When (I) get to a park like this, it feels little bit more comfortable obviously because the park is smaller,” he said through a translator after breaking into his smile. “You can mis-hit balls and they end up leaving the yard.”

Soler was standing at his locker after the game with an ice pack on his left shoulder, but it certainly didn’t affect his power on the two shots that totaled nearly an estimated 800 feet.

“He hits ‘em a long way,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said.

Ryan O’Hearn also homered for Kansas City, which had lost eight in a row to the Red Sox — its longest slump ever against Boston.

Christian Vázquez had two hits with an RBI double for Boston, which halted its eight-game skid a night earlier.

The Red Sox also were held without a home run, ending a club-record stretch of at least one homer in 18 straight games in Fenway Park. 

Junis (7-10) escaped a couple of early jams and gave up one run on seven hits, striking out four with one walk. He went at least six innings for the 12th time in his last 15 starts.

“You definitely want to be the one to put a stop to it,” Junis said of the team’s skid. “You want to be the guy that goes out and throws a strong game.”

Andrew Cashner (10-7) gave up six runs on seven hits — three of them homers — over 5 1/3 innings, dropping his record to 1-4 since being traded from Baltimore to the Red Sox.

“I thought I had good stuff,” he said. “Made three mistakes, they hit three home runs. Kind of the way it goes, but they’re a team that we’ve got to beat. I’ve got to be better.”

A night after the Red Sox got a solid start from Rick Porcello to snap their longest losing stretch since dropping eight straight in 2015, Cashner was chased with Boston trailing 6-1 in the sixth.

Soler’s first homer, his 30th of the season, left Fenway completely, making it 2-1 in the fourth.

Two innings later, he hit a drive that caromed off a billboard in left center to make it 6-1 after Hunter Dozier’s RBI single. Soler is seven homers from tying the club record for a season, set by Mike Moustakas in 2017.

O’Hearn’s drive went into the seats in deep right, next to the Royals bullpen.

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