Two separate RBI singles were all that it took for the Kansas City Royals to spoil Derek Jeter Day and shut out the New York Yankees 2-0 on Sunday afternoon. 

The RBI singles came from Nori Aoki in the top of the second and Eric Hosmer in the third. Josh Willingham scored on Aoki's knock, and Alex Gordon came across the plate on Hosmer's base hit. 

Royals starting pitcher Yordono Ventura (W: 12-9, 3.25 ERA) made the two runs stand up as he pitched six scoreless innings, allowing three harmless singles. He also walked four men and struck out two. In fact, in only two innings did the Yankees even get two men on base: the first and the third. 

Aaron Crow, Kelvin Herrera, and Wade Davis each pitched a scorelss inning in relief, combing for one hit, no walks, and three strikeouts. After allowing a lead-off single to Carlos Beltran to open the bottom of the ninth and bring the potential tying run to the plate, Davis (S: 2) settled in and retird the next three hitters in order to notch his second save. He struck out Brian McCann for the first out and Stephen Drew to end the game.

Yankee starter Shane Greene (L: 4-3, 3.57) allowed both runs to score. He pitched well in a losing effort. Greene allowed five hits and three walks with four strikeouts in his five innings of work for New York. Four Yankee relievers combined for four scoreless innings, keeping the game close, but the offense could not get it done.

Before the game, the Yankees declared September 7 "Derek Jeter Day" and officially retired his #2, meaning that no numbers from 1-10 are ever available for a Yankee to wear again. MLB.com's Bryan Hoch covered the ceremony and printed several of Jeter's quotes from his four-minute speech. See the speech here, via YES Network and MLB.com.

Jeter ended his specch by proclaiming, "We still have a game to play." Jeter was 1 for 3 on his special day with a single in the first inning. He has 3,449 career hits, good for sixth all-time and tops among all-time Yankees.

Kansas City currently leads the A.L. Central by 2.5 games over the Detroit Tigers pending the outcome of the Tigers/San Francisco Giants game Sunday night. Meanwhile, the Yankees are fading in the A.L. Wild Card race, falling five games behind the Seattle Mariners pending the outcome of their game.