Vinnie Pasquantino homered and drove in a career-high five runs, leading the Kansas City Royals to an 11-2 win over the visiting Houston Astros on Wednesday night.
Pasquantino’s two-run double in the third opened the floodgates as the Royals batted around in the inning, plating seven to snap a scoreless tie.
Nelson Velazquez added a two-RBI single and Hunter Renfroe drove in two more runs with a double as part of the third-inning onslaught, which forced Astros starter Spencer Arrighetti (0-1) to throw 43 pitches in the frame.
In the fourth, Pasquantino drove the tenth pitch of his at-bat out to right-center for his first home run of the year, then added a fourth RBI on a sixth-inning sacrifice fly. He capped the scoring with a two-out RBI single in the eighth.
Renfroe extended his hitting streak to six games, and MJ Melendez (1-for-3 on Wednesday) pushed his to seven. Everyone in the Royals’ starting lineup scored at least once.
Arrighetti’s major league debut began well enough with back-to-back strikeouts in a scoreless first inning. He went three innings, allowing seven runs on seven hits, with three walks and three strikeouts.
Alex Bregman and Yainer Diaz opened the fourth with consecutive doubles against Seth Lugo (2-0) as the Astros trimmed the deficit to 7-1.
Bregman and Diaz each had two of Houston’s nine hits.
With a fifth-inning single, Yordan Alvarez extended his hitting streak against Kansas City to 16 games, but his 12-game streak with an extra-base hit against the Royals came to an end. No opponent has had a longer extra-base hit streak against Kansas City.
Lugo completed six innings, allowing two runs on seven hits and two walks, with two strikeouts.
Kansas City starters have recorded a major-league-best nine quality starts. The Royals have won six straight games.
–Field Level Media
