Phillies Blast Royals to Win Series vs Champs
By Matt Veasey
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | |
| Royals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Phillies | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | x | 7 |
The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Kansas City Royals on Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park to win the weekend series.
The Phillies got longballs from the 3, 4, and 5 hitters in their lineup, riding the power bats and the power pitching of Vincent Velasquez to a 7-2 victory over the defending world champion Kansas City Royals.
With the win, the Fightin’ Phils captured the weekend series, taking two of three from last year’s champs. It was a second consecutive series win for the team, and their 7th win over the last 10 games.
Velasquez (7-2) went six innings, allowing just five hits while striking out seven and walking two. He fired 67 strikes over his 96 pitches in the outing.
Edubray Ramos, Hector Neris, and Jeanmar Gomez each followed with a shutout inning of relief to nail down the victory.
The Phils’ bats reached Royals starter Yordano Ventura for a 3-spot in the bottom of the 1st inning on a two-out, three-run bomb to right field from Cameron Rupp, his 8th home run of the year.
With two outs in the bottom of the 3rd inning, Cody Asche ripped his 3rd home run of the season, a solo shot off Ventura that pushed the Phillies lead out to 4-0.
That was all for Ventura (6-6), who was removed from the game following a visit to the mound. The righty allowed four earned runs on four hits, including the two homers, over just 2.2 innings on the day.
Veteran left fielder Alex Gordon briefly got the Royals back in the game with a two-out, two-run homer to right field off Velasquez in the top of the 5th inning, his 6th of the year cutting the Phillies lead in half at 4-2.
The Phils got that one back in the bottom of the inning when Maikel Franco dribbled an infield single with two outs and two on that scored Odubel Herrera to make it a 5-2 game.
In the bottom of the 8th, Franco displayed his power, ripping his 14th home run to left center off KC reliever Brian Flynn. Rupp followed with a single, moved to 2nd on a wild pitch, and scored on an RBI single off the bat of Freddy Galvis.
Per Jordan Hall at CSNPhilly.com, the Phillies are hitting a best-in-baseball .319 since June 21st. Even the Phillies gloves were strong on the afternoon, as the club committed no errors after recording 20 miscues over their last 16 games.
The Phillies will now welcome in the division rival Atlanta Braves for a three-game series beginning with a special 4:05pm Independence Day start time on Monday afternoon. Tuesday will be a traditional 7:05pm start, and the series will end with a Wednesday afternoon 1:05pm game.