Martin Prado went 3-for-4 and scored twice, while the New York Yankees picked up RBI's from five different players to defeat the Kansas City Royals 6-2 on Saturday.
The Yankees moved a game closer to the Detroit Tigers in the A.L. Wild Card race while the Royals maintained their two-game lead in the A.L. Central over Detroit, who lost Satruday. Detroit trails the Seattle Mariners by one full game at the moment with the Yankees four games out. Seattle plays later on Saturday night.
Prado scored the first of his two runs in the bottom of the first on Mark Teixeira's RBI single. Jacoby Ellsbury tripled home John Ryan Murphy in the third (video) with the first of two runs for the Yankees in the inning.
The Yankees scored three more times, capped by a Carlos Beltran double in the fifth, on which Prado scored his second run. The Yankees also got RBI's from Derek Jeter (sacrifice fly in the third) and Ichiro Suzuki (single in the fifth).
Brandon McCarthy (W: 9-14, 4.13 ERA) won his fifth game in 10 starts as a Yankee (2.80 ERA). He pitched 6.2 innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits. He also walked one and struck out four. Three Yankee relievers pitched 2.1 hitless innings to close it out.
The Royals scored their runs on a single from Alex Gordon in the third and a sacrifice fly from Mike Moustakis in the seventh.
Danny Duffy started for Kansas City but left with an injury after throwing just one pitch. The 1:20 mark of the video clip shows Duffy grimmacing after releasing the ball. The initial report from MLB.com's Jake Kring-Schreifels is shoulder soreness. Duffy is 8-11 on the season with a 2.42 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 28 games, 22 of them starts.
Four Royals relievers combined for eight innings pitched with Liam Hendricks (L: 1-1, 4.81) taking the loss. In his four innings, Hendricks allowed four runs (three earned) on seven hits. He walked none and struck out three.
Brandon Finnegan had a successful Major League debut, pitching a perfect sixth inning for the Royals. He ended it with strikeouts to both Ellsbury and Jeter.