Yankees 4, Royals 8: David Phelps allows season-worst seven runs

Even after the Yankees scored three runs in the 6th inning to tie the game, David Phelps gave those runs right back, as the Bombers fell to the Kansas City Royals, 8-3, on Saturday night at Kauffman Stadium.

The Royals roughed up Phelps throughout his start, tagging him for three runs in the 2nd and four runs in the 6th to give give him a season-worst seven earned runs on 10 hits in 5.2 innings.

Kansas City took a 3-0 lead in the 2nd inning against Phelps. Billy Butler doubled to open the inning, then Alex Gordon followed with a double to bring him home. After Salvador Perez singled, Lorenzo Cain singled to score Perez, putting the Royals up 2-0. Mike Moustakas dropped down a bunt to move the runners over, then Alcides Escobar singled to drive in the third run.

After stranding runners on first and second with two outs in the 5th, the Yankees finally got to Royals starter Danny Duffy in the 6th, taking three runs on the board to tie the game.

Derek Jeter singled with one out, and two batters later, Mark Teixeira walked to put runners, once again, on first and second with two outs. But this time, the Yankees capitalized. Carlos Beltran picked up his first hit since coming off of the DL after starting 0-for-9, doubling to right to score Jeter.

Then the next batter, Yangervis Solarte, singled into center field to drive in both Beltran and Teixeira, evening the game at 3-3.

The Yankees and Royals didn't stay even for long, though, as Kansas City would come out swinging the in the bottom of the 6th against Phelps.

Phelps opened the inning by walking Butler and Gordon, then Perez made him pay for those walks, hitting a three-run homerun to left field, putting the Royals back on top, 6-3. Cain tripled off of Phelps immediately following the homerun, and after finally recording the first two outs of the inning, Norichika Aoki singled to make it a 7-3 game.

That was the end of Phelps' awful night, as Matt Daley then took over. Daley finished the 6th, gave up a solo homerun to Eric Hosmer to open the 7th, then gave the ball to Jose Ramirez with two outs in that inning. Ramirez walked one in the 8th, but nothing more than that in 1.1 innings of work.

The Yankees were able to add a run in the 9th when Brian Roberts grounded out to score Solarte, who doubled to open the inning then moved to third base on an Ichiro single, from third base, cutting the deficit to 8-4.

With the loss, the Yankees fall to 31-30 on the season, and will look to stay above .500 tomorrow when they send Hiroki Kuroda to the mound to face James Shields at 2:10 pm ET.

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