Kansas City Royals win tenth straight, beat Tigers 2-1

The Kansas City Royals won their tenth straight game today, beating the Detroit Tigers 2-1.

The ten game win streak is the longest for the franchise since they won 14 straight in July-August of 1994.

More from Detroit Tigers

• MLB standings ordered by hard hit rate: Struggling Cardinals still cracking bats
• MLB rumors: Justin Verlander buzz, Astros target All-Star, Reds-White Sox deal
• Tigers young star takes vicious shot at Royals pitcher over sticky stuff allegations
• Immaculate Grid baseball: Answers, connections, hints for Grid 105 (July 16)
• Immaculate Grid baseball: Answers, connections, hints for Grid 102 (July 13)

The Royals only have two winning streaks longer than ten games in their history.  One is the aforementioned 14 game streak.  The longest in franchise history was 16 games from August 31-September 15 of 1977 (I was born in that sometime during that streak!).

Now back to present day.  Royal starter Jeremy Guthrie pitched very well today, allowing only one run while striking out nine in 6.2 innings pitched.  Kelvin Herrera finished off the seventh inning before giving way to Wade Davis.  Davis struck out the side in the eighth before Greg Holland pickup up his 21st save to finish off the win.

The Royals got on the board early against Tigers starter Drew Smyly.  Eric Hosmer singled and stole second before scoring on an Alex Gordon single.

Smyly pitched well, but took the hard luck loss, giving up two runs in seven innings.

The Royals made it 2-0 on a solo home run by Omar Infante with two outs in the fifth inning.

The only blip on Guthrie’s radar was a solo home run by J.D. Martinez with one out in the seventh to cut the lead to 2-1.

The 2014 Royals will go for sole possession of the third longest win streak in franchise history when they try to finish off a sweep of the Tigers at Comerica Park tomorrow afternoon.

Young lefty Danny Duffy will take the mound for the Royals against Anibal Sanchez.