Advertisement

Royals 9, Rays 8

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Lorenzo Cain and Jeff Francoeur each drove in two runs, and the Kansas City Royals rallied from a five-run deficit to outslug the Tampa Bay Rays 9-8 Wednesday night.

Matt Joyce, Ben Zobrist and Luke Scott hit home runs for the Rays, who have homered in a club-record 16 consecutive games, but it was not enough.

Cain knocked in the go-ahead run in the Royals' five-run sixth. Francoeur's two-out single gave the Royals a 9-6 lead.

The Royals trailed 6-1 going into the bottom of the fourth.

The Rays got two runs back in the seventh with James Loney and Scott stroking RBI singles off Tim Collins, the third of five Kansas City pitchers.

Royals reliever Bruce Chen (2-0) working two scoreless innings after starter Luis Mendoza parted. Mendoza threw four innings and yielded six runs on seven hits, including the three home runs.

Rays reliever Jake McGee (0-2) allowed five runs on four hits in two-thirds of an innings.

Billy Butler went 3-for-4 for the Royals, who logged 14 hits.

The Rays wasted no time breaking the franchise record for homers in consecutive games. Joyce, as he did Tuesday night, homered in the first inning into the Rays bullpen. Three Mendoza pitches later, Zobrist homered to right, the first time this season Tampa Bay has hit back-to-back homers.

Scott, who was activated off the disabled list Tuesday after missing the first 25 games with a right calf strain, joined the homer parade by leading off the fourth with a homer.

Kelly Johnson's double to right in the second scored Scott, who had singled. Desmond Jennings' sacrifice fly scored Jose Lobaton with the other run of the inning.

Evan Longoria tripled in the third when Royals left fielder Alex Gordon failed to make a diving catch of his line drive and the ball rolled to the fence. Loney singled home Longoria.

Former Rays infielder Elliot Johnson homered to lead off the Royals' third, his first of the season.

Gordon singled home Jeff Francoeur, who was hit by a pitch and went to second on a Salvador Perez single, in the Royals' fourth.

The Royals cut the lead to 6-4 in the fifth, when Butler led off with a double, his third hit. Cain tripled him home and scored on Mike Moustakas' sacrifice fly.

NOTES: Ervin Santana, who starts Thursday, has a 6.2 strikeout-to-walk ratio, which ranked third in Royals history for April. ... Matt Moore, who starts Friday for the Rays at Colorado, leads the majors with a .121 opponent's batting average. He is the only sixth pitcher in big league history to go 5-0 in April before turning 24. The others were Babe Ruth in 1917, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981, Greg Swindell in 1988, Dwight Gooden in 1988, and Dontrelle Willis in 2005. ... The Rays went 12-14 in April, their first losing April since going 9-14 in 2009. The Royals went 14-10 in April after going 6-15 in April 2012.