DETROIT (AP) — Mike Montgomery finally got Kansas City a win, 11 years after being drafted by the Royals.

The 30-year-old Montgomery struck out a career-high 12 in seven innings as the Royals beat the Detroit Tigers 7-0 Saturday.

“It took a little while to get my first win as a Royal, but it feels good,” Montgomery said. “We needed this one, which makes it even better.”

Montgomery was selected in the first round of the 2008 draft, but went to Tampa Bay in a trade for Wade Davis and James Shields in 2012. He made his major-league debut with the Mariners in 2015 before winning a World Series ring with the Cubs in 2016.

On July 15, he returned to Kansas City in a trade for catcher Martin Maldonado.

“I would have never believed it if you would have told me it would take this long to win for Kansas City,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of experiences since I was last with the Royals, so to win this game and do it with a career-high in strikeouts makes it even sweeter.”

Jorge Soler homered and scored twice for the Royals, who had lost six of seven.

The Tigers were trying to win three straight games for the first time since May 28-31, against the Orioles and Braves.

“He had a great changeup and he came hard inside on a lot of guys,” Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We really didn’t even hit many balls hard.”

Montgomery (2-5) picked up his first win of the year as a starter, allowing four singles without walking a batter. He struck out 10 Royals for Seattle on June 13, 2015.

“That was enjoyable to watch,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “You could tell right from the outset that he was on his game.”

Spencer Turnbull (3-10) pitched six innings, allowing two runs on three hits and a walk.

Neither team had a baserunner until Whit Merrifield singled to start the fourth. Turnbull retired the next two batters before Jorge Soler homered off the brick wall behind the stands in right-center.

“I knew he hit it hard, but that’s the deepest part of the ballpark, so I wasn’t sure,” Yost said. “I had to look again to see where it hit. He really crushed it.”

It was Soler’s second homer in as many games and 33rd of the season.

Brandon Dixon broke up Montgomery’s perfect game with a leadoff single in the fifth, but was caught stealing.

“He was really tough out there,” Tigers catcher Jake Rogers said. “He went right after us and we weren’t able to do anything against him.”

The top three in Detroit’s order — Victor Reyes, Niko Goodrum and Miguel Cabrera — went 0-6 with six strikeouts the first two times through the order.

The Royals made it 4-0 off Gregory Soto in the seventh. With two out, Soto misplayed a grounder by Meibrys Viloria. He recovered with time to throw out the bulky Viloria, but threw the ball into right field, allowing Soler and Bubba Starling to score.

“Once the ball hit off his glove, he just panicked,” Gardenhire said. “All he had to do was make a nice, easy throw, but he rushed it.”

The inning could have gotten worse, but right-fielder Travis Demeritte made a running catch of a drive to deep right-center by Humberto Arteaga and got Soto out of the inning.

Hunter Dozier made it 5-0 with an RBI triple in the eighth, and Merrifield added a two-run double in the ninth.

Gardenhire was relieved the Tigers escaped Merrifield’s blooper without major injury. The ball fell between Demeritte, Reyes and Goodrum, all of whom had to take evasive action to avoid a full-speed collision. Goodrum spiked Reyes in the shin, but he stayed in the game.

“That could have been a lot worse,” Gardenhire said. “Merrifield got jammed and it landed in the perfect spot with all three guys trying to make a play. We got lucky there.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes took his first snap of the preseason, dropped back and set his feet, then threw a perfect pass down the sideline to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce for a big gain.

It’s was almost as if last season never ended.

The league MVP picked up where he left off from his record-breaking debut as the starter, leading Kansas City to a first-quarter touchdown in a 38-17 rout of the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday night.

Mahomes did a bit of everything on his only series with the first-team offense, too. The gunslinger was 4 for 4 for 66 yards, added a wild 10-yard scramble in which he wisely slid at the goal line to avoid a big hit, and even induced an offside penalty with his barking cadence.

“I felt great. To get out there, make some throws, get the guys kind of rolling,” he said. “Run game, pass game, I thought it was a good drive to start everything off.”

It came after an equally impressive drive by the Cincinnati starters.

Andy Dalton converted a series of third downs while leading the Bengals on a 14-play, 75-yard TD march to open the game . And he did it without the services of injured wide receiver A.J. Green or his top two running backs, Joe Mixon and Giovani Bernard, who were given the night off.

“That’s how you want to start the game,” Dalton said. “We feel like we’ve got depth on this team. We’ve got talent. So for us to miss some of our guys that’ll be starting for us this year, not in there, I thought we did a great job.”

On that drive, perhaps. But first-year head coach Zac Taylor had a different assessment as a whole.

“You really look at a game like this, 38-17 final score, we had two turnovers on special teams, countless penalties on offense and a defensive pass interference that extended a drive that had a big stop,” he said. “That’s life in the NFL right now. We’ve got to correct those mistakes.”

The most interesting thing to happen in the game came late in the first half, when Kyle Shurmur was marching the Chiefs downfield. His throw to Byron Pringle down the sideline was picked by safety Brandon Wilson, scuttling the drive and giving Cincinnati a chance with the ball.

But under a rule change approved by NFL owners in March, pass interference calls can be reviewed — a response to the controversial on-call in the NFC title game last season. And when officials reviewed the play Saturday night, they decided that cornerback Tony Lippett had caused interference.

The penalty gave the Chiefs the ball back and they wound up kicking a field goal.

In a delicious coincidence, the provision passed by a 31-1 vote of owners at the league’s annual meeting in Phoenix. The only team that voted against the rule was Cincinnati.

Kansas State football has continued to make progress under new head coach Chris Klieman and his staff. Fall practice is under way.

Klieman told reporters attending media day that’s he’s pleased with where the Wildcats are at right now in the fall. “Even though it’s early on I was a little concerned with where we would pick up from where we left off in the spring. Would it be from practice four or from practice fourteen, and really that we were able to pick up from practice fourteen and continue on.”

Klieman stated one area where the Wildcats need to continue to improve is in special teams. “Simply because there so’s much emphasis in the spring, offensive schemes, defensive schemes and those guys learning that. Now they have a pretty good grasp of those, we need to continue to get better but now it’s on to the special teams and spending more time on those.”

Kansas State will open play on August 31 when the Wildcats host Nichols. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Other home games for K-State will include Bowling Green on September 7, Baylor October 5, TCU October 19, Oklahoma October 26, West Virginia November 16 and Iowa State November 30.

 

DETROIT (AP) — Ten years later, Edwin Jackson still loves Detroit and Comerica Park.

Friday night, the feeling was mutual.

Jackson pitched neatly into the seventh inning in his return to Detroit, overcoming an inside-the-park home run and leading the Tigers to a 5-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals.

Jackson (2-5) spent the 2009 season with the Tigers, going 13-9 with a 3.62 ERA and playing in his only All-Star Game. Ten years later, he was just as good, allowing one run and four hits in 6 1/3 innings.

“Ever since 2009, Detroit has felt like home to me,” he said. “I loved that year and I’ve always looked forward to coming back, no matter who I was with. Tonight, though, was really special.”

The Tigers, who topped Kansas City a day earlier, posted back-to-back wins at home for the first time since they swept the Royals in their first home series of the season. Detroit, which has the worst record in the majors, hadn’t won two straight anywhere since a three-game winning streak in Baltimore and Atlanta from May 28-31.

Jackson, who has pitched for a major league-record 14 teams, began this season on a minor league deal with Oakland before being purchased by the Blue Jays in May.

The 35-year-old right-hander made eight appearances for Toronto, including five starts, but was released in July with a 11.12 ERA. He signed with the Tigers and made two starts in Triple-A before being called up Thursday.

“Edwin has seen a lot of things and been a lot of places, and he still appreciates every moment he gets in the big leagues,” Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He was fantastic.”

Whit Merrifield led off the game with his second career inside-the-park homer. His line drive evaded the leap of center fielder Victor Reyes and bounced hard off the wall. As Reyes and fellow outfielders Harold Castro and Travis Demeritte chased down the ball, Merrifield circled the bases and scored easily.

“I saw it hit off the wall, but I wasn’t sure how far it kicked,” Merrifield said. “I was just running and I saw (third base coach Mike Jirschele) waving me home. I knew it must have gone pretty far for him to wave me in as the first batter of the game.”

The nine-member 5th Grade JC Outlaws competed in the Mid America Youth Basketball Boys Nationals Basketball Tournament August 2-4. The players on the team are from Junction City, Fort Riley and Manhattan. For the majority of the players this was their first time competing in the MAYB Nationals. They played against teams from Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. There were also teams in the tournament from Arkansas, Louisiana and Minnesota.

Over the weekend they played six games and won four out of five by Saturday, which placed them in the championship game on Sunday morning where they fell to Lawton, Oklahoma.

Donors, coaches and parents are being thanked for supporting the athletes and provided them an opportunity to experience basketball at this level, and for investing in the youth.

DETROIT (AP) — It took 864 major league games for Jordy Mercer to hit his first game-ending homer.

As he rounded the bases Thursday, one thought went through his mind.

“All I was really thinking was how cold the Gatorade bath was going to be,” he said. “I couldn’t wait to get to the plate, but they really got me.”

The 32-year-old Tigers shortstop didn’t mind, since his two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth gave Detroit a 10-8 victory over the Kansas City Royals.

“That’s an awesome feeling, especially since I had never hit one,” he said. “I have a lot of game-ending hits, but you always dream about hitting a walk-off homer. This isn’t the year we hoped for, but there are still good moments.”

The teams combined for eight homers on a rare night where the ball was flying at Comerica Park.

“We don’t get a lot of games like that here,” Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said. “It seemed like everything was going out.”

Travis Demeritte led off the ninth with his third walk of the game and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Jake Rogers.

Mercer then hit a 2-1 fastball from Richard Lovelady (0-2) into the right-field stands for his sixth homer of the season.

“I wanted a fastball down and away and it stayed up,” Lovelady said. “Every time I tried to throw a fastball away, I couldn’t get it below the belt.”

The homer was Detroit’s fourth on a night in which both starters struggled.

Joe Jimenez (3-6) got the win with a scoreless ninth inning.

Tigers starter Matt Boyd gave up five runs on six hits, including three homers, and three walks in a season-worst 2 2/3 innings. Boyd entered the game fourth in the American League with 187 strikeouts, but only had one against the Royals.

“I knew right away I was out of sync, and that’s going to happen once in a while,” he said. “Usually, I can make an adjustment and get things back under control, but nothing worked tonight.”

Hector Lopez, making his first start since May 25, only got four outs. He allowed five runs on two hits, three walks and a hit batter.

Against a Tigers team with the American League’s worst on-base percentage, Kansas City pitchers walked nine batters.

“Walks early, walks in the middle and walks late,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “That’s not good for business. We’d been better lately at containing them, but we just couldn’t do it tonight.”

The Royals took a 2-0 lead in the first. Whit Merrifield led off the game with a double and scored on Hunter Dozier’s one-out homer to right.

Detroit, though, scored five runs on two hits in the second.

After a single and an error, Harold Castro’s three-run homer gave the Tigers the lead.

Lopez walked the next two hitters and, after a groundout, hit JaCoby Jones to load the bases. He then walked Niko Goodrum on four pitches to force in Detroit’s fourth run of the inning before being replaced by Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy walked Miguel Cabrera to make it 5-2 before getting out of the inning.

Dozier led off the third with his second homer of the game, and after Jorge Soler walked, Cheslor Cuthbert hit his eighth homer over the Royals bullpen in left-center field.

Boyd retired the next two batters but walked Nick Dini, bringing Matt Hall in from the bullpen.

Kyle Zimmer replaced McCarthy to start the third and walked the first three batters he faced. Mercer struck out, but Victor Reyes bounced into a run-scoring force at second to give the Tigers a 6-5 lead.

Cabrera led off the fourth with his 473rd career homer to make it 7-5, but Gordon hit a three-run homer over the scoreboard in right-center to put the Royals ahead 8-7 in the sixth.

Demeritte hit his first major league homer to tie it in the seventh.

Ned Yost had better things to do than return to Boston and finish a suspended game.

The Kansas City Royals manager, whose team is 29½ games out in the AL Central, would have preferred to wait until the end of the season to see if making up the game was really necessary.

“That’s the smart thing to do,” Yost said after the series finale between the Red Sox and Royals was suspended by rain early Thursday morning with the score tied 4-4 in the top of the 10th inning.

Rain started falling in the eighth inning, but the grounds crew wasn’t called out until extra innings had just begun, at 10:47 p.m. The teams waited 1 hour, 49 minutes — until 12:36 a.m. before the game was suspended.

“It shouldn’t have lasted two hours long,” Yost said. “If anybody could look at the radar, they’d see that it was probably going to be a showstopper.”

The game will be picked up on Aug. 22, at 1:05 p.m. where it left off — with a 2-1 count on Meibrys Viloria. The Royals were supposed to have a day off while on their way from Baltimore to Cleveland.

“We have a night game there, too, on the getaway day, so I don’t know how we’ll work that,” Yost said.

The Red Sox finish up with the Phillies at Fenway Park on Aug. 21 and had a day off before starting a three-game series in San Diego.

“There’s a lot of people upset about that one,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “No golfing, or SeaWorld, or Legoland.”

After entering the series on an eight-game losing streak that all-but eliminated them from the postseason race, the Red Sox led 4-2 after five innings and were on the verge of taking two of three from Kansas City. But the Royals scored one in the sixth and one in the seventh to tie it.

Kansas City had lost nine of its last 11 games.

Rain started coming down in the eighth, though it stopped and started from there. It was coming down heavily in the ninth when J.D. Martinez came up with two outs and a runner on first.

The crowd seemed to relish the downpour, standing and cheering. But the Red Sox slugger, who had already homered once in the game, grounded out to send it to extra innings.

They only got three pitches in.

BOSTON (AP) — Jorge Soler didn’t have to wait for the question about the Green Monster to be finished before breaking into a wide smile.

Soler hit a pair of long two-run homers over the Monster, Jakob Junis pitched six effective innings and the Kansas City Royals snapped their seven-game losing streak by beating the Boston Red Sox 6-2 on Tuesday night.

“When (I) get to a park like this, it feels little bit more comfortable obviously because the park is smaller,” he said through a translator after breaking into his smile. “You can mis-hit balls and they end up leaving the yard.”

Soler was standing at his locker after the game with an ice pack on his left shoulder, but it certainly didn’t affect his power on the two shots that totaled nearly an estimated 800 feet.

“He hits ’em a long way,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said.

Ryan O’Hearn also homered for Kansas City, which had lost eight in a row to the Red Sox — its longest slump ever against Boston.

Christian Vázquez had two hits with an RBI double for Boston, which halted its eight-game skid a night earlier.

The Red Sox also were held without a home run, ending a club-record stretch of at least one homer in 18 straight games in Fenway Park.

Junis (7-10) escaped a couple of early jams and gave up one run on seven hits, striking out four with one walk. He went at least six innings for the 12th time in his last 15 starts.

“You definitely want to be the one to put a stop to it,” Junis said of the team’s skid. “You want to be the guy that goes out and throws a strong game.”

Andrew Cashner (10-7) gave up six runs on seven hits — three of them homers — over 5 1/3 innings, dropping his record to 1-4 since being traded from Baltimore to the Red Sox.

“I thought I had good stuff,” he said. “Made three mistakes, they hit three home runs. Kind of the way it goes, but they’re a team that we’ve got to beat. I’ve got to be better.”

A night after the Red Sox got a solid start from Rick Porcello to snap their longest losing stretch since dropping eight straight in 2015, Cashner was chased with Boston trailing 6-1 in the sixth.

Soler’s first homer, his 30th of the season, left Fenway completely, making it 2-1 in the fourth.

Two innings later, he hit a drive that caromed off a billboard in left center to make it 6-1 after Hunter Dozier’s RBI single. Soler is seven homers from tying the club record for a season, set by Mike Moustakas in 2017.

O’Hearn’s drive went into the seats in deep right, next to the Royals bullpen.

The Red Sox stranded seven runners over the first four innings.

“I think we swung at a lot of pitches that were out of the zone or pitches at the end of the zone that we can’t do damage with it,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said.

Kansas City center fielder Bubba Starling struck out swinging in all four at-bats but made a nice catch to save at least one run.

CASHING OUT

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Jordy Nelson’s NFL career ended in the same place where it began: Lambeau Field. Nelson signed a one-day contract with the Packers and announced his retirement after 11 seasons, 10 of which he spent in Green Bay.

Nelson will be remembered for his speed, size and chemistry with quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The pair won a Super Bowl after the 2010 season, with Nelson catching a touchdown in the victory over the Steelers.

Nelson is third in Packers history in receptions.

BOSTON (AP) — The music was blaring in the clubhouse and Boston utility player Brock Holt was holding a microphone, acting like a DJ.

The defending World Series champion Red Sox were clearly ready to relax and have fun again.

Rick Porcello pitched six innings of one-run ball, Sam Travis hit a two-run homer and the Red Sox halted their eight-game losing streak with a 7-5 victory over the struggling Kansas City Royals on Monday night.

“That’s kind of where we need to be in general,” Porcello said. “Some pressure when you start losing, especially with the talented team we have. That’s kind of how we need to be every day, kind of relaxed and focus on the task in hand.”

Rafael Devers added a solo shot for the Red Sox. Travis’ gave Boston a homer in a club-record 18 straight games in Fenway Park. The old mark was set in 1969.

Bubba Starling, Meibrys Viloria and Cheslor Cuthbert each went deep for Kansas City, with Viloria’s his first homer in the majors and Starling’s a three-run shot.

It was the seventh straight loss for the Royals, who had a 10-game skid in the season’s first two weeks.

Porcello (10-8), who smashed a pair of TV monitors in the Fenway dugout in frustration in his last start, gave up four hits, walked two and struck out five.

The only thing he broke this time was the defending World Series champions’ losing streak. It was their first win since beating the rival Yankees at home on July 27 and moved them 5 ½ games behind Tampa Bay for the AL’s second wild-card spot.

“Obviously we had a rough week, but we still believe in ourselves,” Devers said through a translator.

The longest skid for a defending champ is 11 games, done by both the 1998 then-Florida Marlins (twice) and the 1986 Royals.

Boston’s starters had a 10.95 ERA over the eight-game skid.

Brandon Workman got the final three outs for his sixth save.

Making his fourth start since being acquired from the Chicago Cubs in July, Mike Montgomery (1-5) gave up four runs — two earned — over five innings and fell to 0-3 since joining the Royals.

“I thought he threw the ball fine. He did a nice job,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He gave us a chance to win the game.”

In their first time through the order against Montgomery, the Red Sox struck out five times. Boston jumped ahead with three runs the second time.

Mookie Betts opened the third inning with a walk and Devers singled. Shortstop Nick Lopez booted Xander Bogaerts’ grounder, with Betts scoring from third.

After Andrew Benintendi bounced into a double play, Travis hit his shot into the Green Monster seats. Devers hit his over the Monster in the fifth.

Benintendi’s two-run double highlighted a three-run seventh that made it 7-2.