Aug 19, 2025

Three homers help power Kansas City to fourth win in a row

Posted Aug 19, 2025 2:33 AM

By MATT PIKE

Home runs by Mike Yastrzemski, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Maikel Garcia helped power the Kansas City Royals to a fourth win in a row, beating the Texas Rangers to open a four game series 4-3 on Monday night at Kauffman Stadium. 

For the third time this month, Yastrzemski opened the scoring for Kansas City in the first inning with a leadoff home run.  With the leadoff home run, Yaz tied Johnny Damon (Sept. 1998) and Alex Gordon (Aug. 2012) for the club record of lead off home runs in a month.  Damon (1998) and Gordon (2011) are also tied at five for the most leadoff home runs in a single year

The Rangers tied it up in the second inning, Jonah Heim's RBI single driving in Marcus Semien following his leadoff single to the inning.  In the third inning though, another home run blasted the Royals ahead, Pasquantino hitting a two run shot, scoring Bobby Witt Jr who walked to open the inning, and putting Kansas City back ahead 3-1. 

In the fifth inning, Garcia extended the lead, leading off the inning with a solo home run for the final Royals run of the game.  Texas added a run in the sixth inning, Evan Carter hitting an RBI single and driving in Wyatt Langford following his leadoff single, before cutting the lead to one in the eighth inning with Langford scoring on a groundout by Rowdy Tellez.  Carlos Estévez retired the Rangers 1-2-3 in the ninth to earn his 32nd save. 

Michael Wacha earned the win, improving to 8-9 on the season, pitching 5 2/3 innings giving up two runs on nine hits while striking out three.  At the plate, Yastrzemski was 2-for-3 with the home run and an RBI.  Garcia was 2-for-4 with the home run and an RBI, while Pasquantino was 1-for-4 with the home run and two RBIs. 

Kansas City looks to push the win streak to five continuing against Texas tomorrow.  Seth Lugo (8-6, 3.77 ERA) looks to bounce back from back to back rough starts on the mound for the Royals against Merrill Kelly (9-7, 3.36 ERA) for the Rangers.  First pitch is at 6:40pm, pregame coverage beginning at 6 again on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM). 

You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.