Royals Win 8th Straight, Take Over First Place In A.L Central

All right, let’s see a show of hands of those who thought the Kansas City Royals would be in first place on August 12th. That’s right, the small market, low budget Royals won their eighth straight game on August 11th and took over first place from the struggling, but high budget, Detroit Tigers. The Royals beat the Oakland Athletics 3-2 in front of the hometown folks in Kansas City to take over the Central lead. The Athletics are another small market, low budget club, but they happen to have the best record in baseball at 72-46 and lead the A.L West. The Royals are 64-53, with a half game lead over the Tigers, who lost to Pittsburgh.

Here’s a nice catch by Royals left fielder Alex Gordon:

And here’s a not so nice throw by Oakland right fielder Josh Reddick:

Whoops! That was embarrassing.

The Tigers still have some big bats in their lineup, but they’re formerly deep pitching staff isn’t so much anymore. Starter Anibal Sanchez went on the disabled list for the second time this season (thereby messing up someone’s fantasy baseball team at a critical time) and newly acquired reliever Joakim Soria joined him there. Justin Verlander, who just hasn’t been himself this season, was to undergo an MRI on his right shoulder.