Royals hold off Tigers behind three RBIs from Moustakas

The Kansas City Royals might not have had the quantity of chances to score runs that the Detroit Tigers did Sunday, but the Royals definitely did a better of job of capitalizing on their opportunities.

Behind three RBIs from third baseman Mike Moustakas, the Royals took three of four from the weekend series against the Tigers with a 4-2 victory at Kauffman Stadium.

The Tigers left eight runners on base and only had one hit with runners in scoring position, while the Royals went 2-for-3 with runners in scoring position and left only two runners on.

Moustakas staked the Royals to a 3-0 lead after the first three innings.

In the first, Moustakas hit a sacrifice fly that scored Whit Merrifield and gave the Royals a 1-0 lead.

Then with two outs and runners on second and third in the third inning, Moustakas hit a two-run double to right-center to score Merrifield and Jorge Soler to make it 3-0 Kansas City.

Salvador Perez then gave Kansas City a 4-0 lead when he singled home Moustakas to complete a rally that started with two outs and nobody on base in the inning.

The Tigers got on the board in the fourth on a solo home run by John Hicks to cut the Kansas City lead to 4-1, and then Detroit cut its deficit to 4-2 in the eighth on an RBI single by Hicks.

But the Tigers stranded runners on second and first in the eighth and then went were retired in order by Royals closer Kelvin Herrera in the top of the ninth.

Jakob Junis pitched seven strong innings to get the win for the Royals, striking out eight, walking one and scattering eight hits to improve to 4-2.

Matt Boyd had a solid outing for the Tigers, striking out five, walking one and allowing six hits in seven innings of work.

Detroit outhit Kansas City, 10-7.

--Field Level Media