ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Eric Hosmer hit a two-run homer in the 11th inning, and the surprising Kansas City Royals took a 2-0 lead in the AL Division Series with a 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night.

Alex Gordon had an early run-scoring single and Salvador Perez added an RBI infield single in the 11th for the Royals, who became the first team in major league history to win three straight extra-inning playoff games.

In its first postseason appearance since 1985, Kansas City’s playoff roll just can’t be slowed by the majors’ best regular-season team. Hosmer had three hits and scored two runs as the Royals moved to the brink of the AL Championship Series.

Game 3 in the best-of-five series is Sunday in Kansas City, where Angels left-hander C.J. Wilson faces James Shields.

After 10 innings of intense, pitching-dominated baseball, the Royals broke out. Lorenzo Cain beat out a one-out infield single off losing pitcher Kevin Jepsen, and Hosmer smacked a no-doubt homer to right field, setting off a celebration for several dozen blue-clad fans in a sea of red at the Big A.

Albert Pujols had a tying RBI single in the sixth for the Angels, but the majors’ most productive offense has been mostly helpless against the Royals. Los Angeles, which led the big leagues with 98 wins, has just 10 hits and three runs in 22 innings.

Mike Trout got a chance to help in the 11th after second baseman Omar Infante made a throwing error on Kole Calhoun’s two-out grounder. But the AL MVP favorite struck out against Greg Holland, finishing his second straight 0-for-4 night in his first playoff series.

Only two teams since 1995 have rallied to win a division series after losing the first two games at home.

Kansas City’s cardiac kids have put an unlikely charge into October. The Royals are the first team to play in three consecutive extra-inning playoff games since the 1980 NLCS between Houston and Philadelphia, which had four straight.

They followed up their 12-inning wild-card victory over Oakland with a series-opening win on Mike Moustakas’ 11th-inning homer, and Hosmer kept it going with his decisive homer one night later.

Brandon Finnegan pitched a hitless 10th for the Royals, and the 21-year-old rookie earned the win. Greg Holland worked the 11th for his second save of the series.

In a matchup of impressive rookie starters, Yordano Ventura pitched five-hit ball for the Royals, and Matt Shoemaker threw six innings of five-hit ball for Los Angeles.

Ventura’s fastball was clocked at 102 mph in the second inning, and he was still hitting triple digits in the seventh. He escaped jams twice in the late innings, stranding three runners.

Shoemaker also was sharp in his playoff debut after a breakthrough 16-win regular season. The Angels’ 28-year-old rookie had six strikeouts while pitching for the first time since straining an oblique muscle on Sept. 15.

The Royals took an early lead for the second straight night when Hosmer singled, advanced on Calhoun’s error in right field and scored on Gordon’s single in the second inning.

After Ventura retired 10 straight in the early innings, the Angels evened it in the sixth with a two-out rally. After Calhoun singled and Trout walked, Pujols drove a 100 mph fastball to right for the first hit of his first postseason with Los Angeles.

Royals catcher Salvador Perez was hit in the head by Josh Hamilton’s backswing in the fifth inning. Perez, the hero of Kansas City’s wild-card playoff victory over Oakland, stayed in the game after a long moment on the ground.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Royals: RHP Kelvin Herrera has a flexor strain in his right forearm after throwing just five pitches in Game 1. The reliever will be re-evaluated when the teams get to Kansas City.

Angels: Hamilton went 0 for 4 with a double-play grounder to end the 10th, dropping to 0 for 9 in his first playoff series with Los Angeles. The slugger played just once in the final 22 games of the regular season due to upper-body injuries.

UP NEXT

Shields started the Royals’ wild-card playoff win Tuesday, so he’ll be on normal rest. Los Angeles is hoping for solid work from the up-and-down Wilson.

— Associated Press —

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ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Mike Moustakas homered leading off the 11th inning, and the Kansas City Royals kept rolling in their first postseason in 29 years with a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels in the AL Division Series opener Thursday night.

Moustakas hit the first extra-inning homer in postseason history for the Royals, a high shot off Fernando Salas that barely reached the elevated right-field stands at Angel Stadium.

Alcides Escobar had an early RBI double for the Royals, and their bullpen repeatedly escaped trouble in Kansas City’s first game since that spectacular, 12-inning comeback victory over Oakland in the wild-card playoff Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium.

Game 2 in the best-of-five series is Friday night at the Big A, with Angels 16-game winner Matt Shoemaker taking on fellow rookie Yordano Ventura.

Chris Iannetta and David Freese homered early in the Angels’ first playoff game since 2009, but the majors’ most productive offense stranded eight runners in the five innings before Greg Holland’s perfect 11th.

Winning pitcher Danny Duffy worked the 10th for Kansas City, and Holland picked up the save after arriving at the ballpark around the fourth inning. He went to North Carolina on the Royals’ off day to attend his child’s birth.

Mike Trout was 0 for 4 with a walk in his playoff debut. The favorite for AL MVP grounded into a fielder’s choice in the 10th before Albert Pujols popped out to end his 0-for-4 Angels playoff debut. Josh Hamilton popped out to end the game, capping his 0-for-5 return to the lineup.

Jered Weaver, Joe Smith and Huston Street combined to retire Kansas City’s final 15 batters before extra innings — and that’s when the Royals went to work. Kevin Jepsen let two runners on in the 10th, but retired Salvador Perez and Omar Infante to escape.

Salas wasn’t as lucky, giving up a homer to the Royals’ No. 9 hitter. Moustakas grew up in the San Fernando Valley and played at UCLA before making his big league debut and hitting his first homer at the Big A in 2011.

A raucous crowd banged balloons and cheered on the Angels throughout their postseason return after a half-decade away, but the fans got tense while the teams managed just three hits apiece in the first nine innings. Los Angeles earned home-field advantage throughout the postseason with a big league-best 98-64 record in the regular season, winning the AL West while scoring 773 runs.

The Royals can’t match Los Angeles’ offense on paper, but they’ve got some remarkable postseason mojo.

Even before Moustakas’ homer, Nori Aoki made dramatically awkward catches on the right-field warning track to end the sixth and seventh, twice making up for poor routes to the Angels’ drives with a last-instant stab. Lorenzo Cain also made two exceptional plays in center field in the first two innings, underlining Kansas City’s stellar defense.

Weaver yielded three hits over seven strong innings for the Angels while his good friend, Jason Vargas, pitched six innings of three-hit ball for Kansas City.

Weaver and Vargas played together at nearby Long Beach State and again with the Angels last year. They’re taking a vacation together after the season — but first, the former Dirtbags dueled through 6 1/2 tense innings in Orange County.

After Escobar put the Royals ahead, Los Angeles tied it when Iannetta drove a fastball into the bullpens in his first career playoff at-bat. While Trout’s October debut received all the pregame attention, the Angels’ tough catcher also got his first postseason experience after sitting out twice when his Colorado Rockies made the playoffs.

Kansas City went back ahead in the fifth when Alex Gordon doubled and scored on Infante’s sacrifice fly, but Freese tied it again with another drive to the bullpens in left. Freese, the MVP of the 2011 World Series and NLCS for St. Louis, got his 24th postseason extra-base hit and 30th RBI in his Angels playoff debut.

The Angels put two runners on against a tiring Vargas in the sixth, and Royals fans might have had bitter flashbacks to manager Ned Yost’s much-debated, sixth-inning pitching decisions in the wild-card game. But Aoki saved Kansas City when he blindly nabbed Howie Kendrick’s drive to the warning track in right.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Royals: RHP Kelvin Herrera walked Freese on five pitches leading off the seventh and then left the game with right forearm tightness. Herrera is a key member of Kansas City’s vaunted bullpen.

Angels: Hamilton played left field and batted seventh after missing 21 of the Angels’ final 22 regular-season games with upper-body injuries.

UP NEXT

Shoemaker (16-4, 3.04 ERA), the 28-year-old rookie who gets credit from manager Mike Scioscia for saving the Angels’ season, makes his playoff debut. He hasn’t pitched since Sept. 15, when he strained an oblique muscle. Kansas City counters with Ventura (14-10, 3.20), who struggled in the sixth inning of the wild-card game, but possesses a 100 mph fastball.

— Associated Press —

COLUMBIA (AP) – Missouri’s point man for men’s college basketball has been suspended indefinitely after he was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

Dave Reiter, an assistant athletic director for strategic communications, was arrested early Wednesday in Lafayette County.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reported the 36-year-old Reiter was taken to the Odessa Police Department and later released.

Reiter is a 2001 graduate of Kansas State University and a native of Halstead, Kansas. He came to Mizzou in 2005 after spending two years in the Northern Illinois media relations office, which preceded two years as a graduate assistant with the University of Illinois in their athletic communications office.  He spent the 2011-12 season as director of athletic communications at the University of Houston before returning to Mizzou.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Royals had waited 29 years to reach the postseason. They weren’t going down without a fight.

Salvador Perez singled down the left-field line with two outs in the 12th inning, allowing Christian Colon to score from second base and giving the long-suffering Royals a 9-8 victory over the Oakland Athletics in a wild AL wild-card game Tuesday night.

Quite a start to October baseball — even if this one appeared to be over in September with plenty of time to spare.

The A’s raced out to a 7-3 lead by the sixth inning, but the Royals countered with three runs in the eighth. Nori Aoki’s sacrifice fly off Sean Doolittle in the ninth forced extra innings.

The teams kept trading blows over the next couple innings, as midnight came and went on the East Coast and the tension continued to build. Brandon Finnegan finally cracked after tossing two scoreless innings, but the Royals were there to pick up their pitching one last time.

Eric Hosmer hit a rocket to the wall in left field off Dan Otero for a leadoff triple in the 12th, and Colon hit an infield chopper that he beat out for a tying single. That set the stage for Perez, who lined a pitch from Jason Hammel just inside the third-base line to send the Royals pouring out of their dugout in a mad celebration.

The long-suffering franchise hadn’t played in the postseason since beating St. Louis in the 1985 World Series, and the excitement the permeated the city might best be summed up by a statement posted by the Kansas City Police on Twitter in about the 10th inning: “We really need everyone to not commit crimes and drive safely right now. We’d like to hear the Royals clinch.”

They finally did it in a thrilling start to baseball’s playoffs.

For the Oakland, it was one final collapse in a season full of them. The club that once had the best record in baseball wilted over the second half of the season, and needed a victory on the final day of the regular season just to squeeze into the playoffs.

They had chances to put all that in the past. Instead, it will be dragged up for years.

Brandon Moss helped the A’s strike first, belting a two-run homer in the first inning and a three-run shot in the fifth. The Royals countered by playing small ball, stealing seven bases to tie a postseason record previously shared by the 1907 Chicago Cubs and 1975 Cincinnati Reds, according to STATS.A much-anticipated pitching showdown between Oakland ace Jon Lester and Kansas City counterpart James Shields instead turned into a high-scoring game and a battle of attrition between their bullpens.

Kansas City clawed back from a four-run deficit over the final two innings.

The impassioned play by a scrappy bunch of Royals that have rarely tasted success energized a sellout crowd that had been pining for postseason baseball since the 1985 World Series.

Then again, maybe it was the crowd that energized the Royals.

Oakland had built a big lead after the fifth inning, and Lester — long a thorn in the side of Kansas City — had started to hit his stride. But A’s manager Bob Melvin opted to send him out for the eighth inning, and the Royals finally got Lester into a real jam.

Luke Gregerson entered in relief but failed to provide much. By the time he struck out Perez and Omar Infante to leave runners on second and third, the A’s four-run lead had become one.

Doolittle tried to finish the game off in the ninth, but he served up a leadoff single to pinch-hitter Josh Willingham. Pinch-runner Jarrod Dyson was sacrificed to second, and then brashly stole third base, allowing him to score on Aoki’s sacrifice fly to right field.

It was the third time in the last three seasons Doolittle has blown a postseason save.

By that point, a series of blunders by the Royals and manager Ned Yost had become moot.

Sean Doolittle tried to finish the game off in the ninth, but he gave up a bloop single to pinch-hitter Josh Willingham. Pinch-runner Jarrod Dyson was sacrificed to second and then brashly stole third, allowing him to score on Aoki’s sacrifice fly to deep right field.

It was the third time in the last three seasons that Doolittle has blown a postseason save.

By that point, a series of blunders by the Royals and manager Ned Yost had become moot.

The first occurred in the first inning, when slow-footed designated hitter Billy Butler was caught wandering off first base on an attempted steal with a runner on third. Eric Hosmer broke late for the plate and was thrown out easily to end the inning.

In the sixth, Yost yanked Shields — the ace of his staff — and called on Yordano Ventura. The rookie promptly served up Moss’ go-ahead, three-run homer.

All that was forgotten as midnight approached at Kauffman Stadium. And now, none of it will be remembered after one of the most dramatic games in franchise history.

UP NEXT

Yost has refused to discuss who he might pitch in the opener against the Angels. The two best bets are vastly different options: Danny Duffy is a young, hard-throwing left-hander who plays on passion, Jeremy Guthrie is a cerebral right-hander that relies on guile.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Athletics catcher Geovany Soto left the game after hurting his left thumb tagging Hosmer at the plate to end the first inning. Soto started over Norris despite never having caught Lester because he’s better at handling the running game. The Royals led the majors with 153 stolen bases this season, and they had seven more Tuesday night — all but one after Soto left the game.

— Associated Press —

 

With their dramatic 9-8 win tonight over the Athletics in 12 innings, the Royals will move on to face the Angels in the ALDS.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jamaal Charles proved he is back to full speed for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Tom Brady is still stuck in neutral for the New England Patriots.

Charles returned from an injury to score three touchdowns Monday night, Brady was picked off twice by the opportunistic Chiefs, and Kansas City routed New England 41-14 to hand Bill Belichick one of his worst losses as coach of the Patriots.

Charles, who missed last week’s win in Miami with a sprained ankle, ran for 92 yards and a score. The Pro Bowl running back also caught two short touchdown passes from Alex Smith, who had 248 yards passing and three touchdowns in a sharp performance before a raucous crowd.

The Chiefs (2-2) ended a four-game skid at Arrowhead Stadium dating to last season by handing the Patriots (2-2) their worst defeat since losing to San Diego 41-17 in 2005.

Along with throwing two interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown, Brady was strip-sacked by Tamba Hali to step up a field goal. Brady finished 14 of 23 for 159 yards.

The Chiefs forced the Patriots to air it out by stuffing Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley. And when Brady dropped back, their front seven ran roughshod over their suspect offensive line.

It hardly helped the Patriots’ offense that it was trying to operate on the same night Chiefs fans were trying to reclaim the record for loudest outdoor sports venue. The record was set in the first half, when Guinness World Records record a noise level of 142.2 decibels — breaking the mark of 137.6 that the Seattle Seahawks’ fans had set last season.

The crowd included several members of the Kansas City Royals, who made the walk across the parking lot from Kauffman Stadium to watch the start of the game on the sidelines. The Royals will play their first postseason game since 1985 against the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday night.

Knile Davis finished with 107 yards rushing for Kansas City. Tight end Travis Kelce had eight catches for 93 yards and a score.

Charles gave the Chiefs an early lead with his first-quarter touchdown plunge, and then he extended the lead with a 5-yard TD catch in the second quarter.

Cairo Santos added a 22-yard field goal just before halftime for a 17-0 lead.

The field goal came after the Chiefs were bailed out by a defensive penalty. They had been stopped short on a pass play with 8 seconds left, but the penalty gave them a second chance.

Kansas City had 303 yards of first-half offense, the most against any Belichick-coached team.

Charles added his third touchdown of the game early in the second half, taking a short pass in the flat and stumbling into the end zone. He appeared to grab his hamstring on the way down and was met by trainers as he exited the field. After a brief trip to the locker room, Charles logged a few more carries before his night was done.

By that point, the game was pretty much done, too.

Brady threw a 44-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to Brandon LaFell, who slipped the grasp of cornerback Marcus Cooper to reach the end zone. But he was picked off by Husain Abdullah later in the half, and Abdullah returned the interception 39 yards for a touchdown.

With the game out of hand, the Patriots gave rookie quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo a chance to play. He threw a late touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski to complete the scoring.

— Associated Press —

 

DODGE CITY – The No. 5 Hutchinson Community College Blue Dragons overcame two first-half turnovers, a bad punt snap out of the end zone and a ton of penalties to defeat the Dodge City Conquistadors 43-26 in a Jayhawk Conference contest on Saturday at Dodge City’s Memorial Stadium.

The Blue Dragons start the season 5-0 for the first time since 2010 and for the sixth time in program history.

Now 3-0 in the Jayhawk Conference, the Blue Dragons will travel to No. 19 Coffeyville (4-1, 3-0) at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium in Coffeyville.

One year ago at Dodge City, the Blue Dragons committed four turnovers and had numerous other mistakes in 40-34 overtime loss to the Conquistadors. After their first two offensive plays on Saturday, there were flashbacks to last season and the potential to be down 14-0 just minutes into the game. Instead, the Blue Dragon defense minimized the damage, limiting Dodge City to just five points.

On the first play of the game, HCC fumbled at the Dragon 24. Dodge City (2-3, 2-1) settled for a 40-yard Dillon Burkhart field goal. On Hutchinson’s next play, the Conquistadors forced a second fumble at the HCC 25 and had a chance to recover the bouncing ball in the end zone. The Blue Dragons caught a break as the ball rolled out the back of the end zone for a safety and Dodge City led 5-0 with 12:16 remaining in the first quarter.

After the free kick following the safety, the Conquistadors were on the move again, but the defense thwarted the advance when sophomore Marquavius Lewis sacked Dodge quarterback Deondre Ford, forcing a fumble that Darius Wright recovered and returned to the HCC 49.

The Blue Dragons answered with a 12-play, 51-yard march all on the ground with all three running backs getting carries. HCC finished off the drive with a Travis Custis 3-yard TD run and HCC led 7-5 with 7:09 to play in the opening quarter.

That was the first of five lead changes in the game. HCC led 14-12 at halftime, 23-19 after three quarters and broke the game open with a 20-7 fourth quarter.

Hutchinson’s defense played huge, holding the Conquistadors to a negative 22-yards rushing and 216 total yards. HCC’s defense forced three takeaways, had 12 tackles for loss including five quarterback sacks, 11 quarterback hurries and a season-high eight passes broken up.

Linebacker Darius Wright had 11 total tackles, a fumble recovery, an interception and quarterback hurry. Defensive back Riley Hunsicker had nine tackles, while Lewis had eight tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, two quarterback sacks, a forced fumble and two quarterback hurries.

Offensively, the Dragons broke 300 yards rushing for the third time this season, going for 345 yards and five rushing touchdowns. HCC had 490 total yards.

Running back Alvin Kamara rushed for three touchdowns and a game-high 165 yards on 32 carries. Bradan Smith rushed for a career-high 123 yards on 10 carries, a touchdown and a career-best 63-yard long run. It’s the second time this season that two HCC backs have rushed for 100 yards in a single game.

Quarterback Kylen Binn came off the bench to complete 7 of 10 passes for 131 yards and a touchdown. Binn completed two huge third-down passes in the fourth quarter, which led to an HCC touchdown that made it a two-possession game.

Anthony Autry had two receptions for 77 yards and a 42-yard touchdown reception.

With HCC leading 7-5 in the first quarter and going against a strong southerly wind, the Blue Dragons were set to punt their 44 and the punt snap went over the head of HCC punter Stetson Broce. He chased it down at the HCC 2 and ran to the 5 before being tackled, giving up the ball on downs.

It took four plays, but Dodge City finally cashed in on a Ford-to-Christian Booker 21-yard touchdown pass to give the Conquistadors a 12-7 lead with 14:47 to play in the second quarter.

HCC answered right back with an eight-play, 53-yard scoring march. Kamara capped off the march with an eye-popping 1-yard leap over the pile to give Hutchinson a 14-12 lead with 12:23 to play in the second quarter.

Lead change No. 4 came after HCC came up short on a fake punt a midfield. Dodge City reclaimed the lead on a seven-play, 49-yard drive and took a 19-14 lead on Toma King’s 1-yard touchdown with 5:48 remaining in the third quarter.

The Dragons rode the ground game for lead change No. 5 as they traveled all 71 yards with Kamara and Custis carrying the load on an eight-play scoring drive that was capped by Kamara’s second score of the game, this one from 5-yards out for a 21-19 lead with 3:41 to play in the third quarter.

HCC forced a three-and-out and got a 6-yard punt into the wind, but offsetting penalties forced the replay of fourth down. On the second punt, a low snap bounced out of the back of the end zone for a Hutchinson safety and the Dragons led 23-19 with 1:55 to play in the third.

Both teams traded punts on their next two possessions and HCC took over at the Dragon 22. Binn completed third-down passes of 21 yards to DeQuan Bowman on third-and-14 and Autry for 35 yards on third-and-4 to set up Smith’s 15-yard touchdown run for a two-possession lead at 30-19 with 8:17 to play.

After forcing another Dodge City three-and-out, the Dragons took complete control when on the first play of the series, Binn connected with Autry on a 42-yard TD play for a 37-19 Dragon lead with 7:05 to go.

Dodge City scored to make it 37-26, but Hutchinson answered back with a four-play, 43-yard march capped off by Kamara’s third touchdown of the game where he took an inside run, spun away from a tackle and bounced it outside and down the sideline for the score.

The Blue Dragons held Dodge City to a minus-28 rushing yards and 25 total yards in the fourth quarter.

GAME NOTES – The other seasons that HCC has started a season 5-0 are 1936, 1947, 1948, 1969 and 2010. … The Dragons are now 46-34-4 all-time vs. Dodge City and 21-21-2 in games played in Dodge City. … Alvin Kamara has seven touchdowns in his last two games. … This was the first time that HCC held an opponent to negative rushing yards since Dakota College in last year’s Salt City Bowl. … Since the start of the 2013 season, the Blue Dragons have had 33 interceptions and at least one pick in 13-stragiht games and 16 of the last 17.

(HCC Sports Information)

 

CHICAGO (AP) — Moments after Detroit secured the AL Central title, Kansas City manager Ned Yost started pulling some of his regulars from the lineup.

It was finally time to start preparing for the playoffs.

Kansas City’s chance for a division crown was erased by Detroit’s victory on Sunday, and the Royals went on to a 6-4 comeback win over Chicago in the final game for retiring White Sox captain Paul Konerko.

Coming into the final day of the regular season, Kansas City was hoping for a one-game playoff on Monday in Detroit for the division crown. But the Tigers clinched with a 3-0 victory over the Twins, sending the Royals to the wild-card game on Tuesday night against Oakland in their first postseason appearance since winning Game 7 of the 1985 World Series.

“There’s been teams that have won the World Series from the wild-card game, and they know that,” Yost said. “So they’re excited to start the process.

“When a lot of teams are going home, the elite few get to stay back and play in this tournament, and for the first time in a long time, we’ve earned the right to play in it.”

Kansas City (89-73) will send James Shields to the mound against Oakland left-hander Jon Lester when it hosts the first game of the 2014 playoffs. The Royals went 5-2 against the Athletics this year, but both of their losses came against Lester.

“I’m glad we can kind of put the regular season behind us, start this new journey right now,” first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “It’s going to be a fun experience.”

Konerko started at first base and played five innings on the final day of his 18-year big league career. The slugger, who paid tribute to his wife and three children by writing their names in the infield dirt behind the bag, went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts.

Konerko went out to first before Kansas City batted in the sixth inning, and then was replaced by Andy Wilkins. Konerko waved his hat toward the visiting dugout, where the Royals were standing and applauding along the top step, and then waved to the standing crowd of 32,266, once again hearing chants of “Paulie! Paulie!”

The 38-year-old disappeared into the dugout for a brief moment and then popped back out for a curtain call. He waved to the crowd again and acknowledged the sustained cheers with a bow before retreating back into the dugout, where he received more hugs and congratulations from his teammates.

“This whole thing blew me away,” said Konerko, who also was honored by the White Sox before Saturday night’s game. “I know I’ve been here a while and I knew there’d be something at the end that would be commemorating me being here for a while. But this whole thing, the fans and all that last night, I never thought that I was one of those guys that gets that.”

Konerko also lingered on the field after the loss to exchange high-fives with the fans along the railing of his longtime home. A six-time All-Star, Konerko finishes with a .279 average, 439 homers and 1,412 RBIs.

Chicago had a 4-2 lead when Konerko departed, but Kansas City responded with three runs in the sixth. Christian Colon, who was activated from the disabled list before the game, hit a tying two-run double off Daniel Webb (6-5) and Carlos Peguero added a tiebreaking RBI single.

Casey Coleman (1-0) pitched a scoreless inning for his first win since Sept. 9, 2011, for the Chicago Cubs against Milwaukee. Louis Coleman got three outs for his first save.

The White Sox (73-89) dropped five of their final six games. Adam Eaton went 3 for 3 before he was replaced in the field before the fifth inning, leaving him with a .300 batting average.

READY TO GO

Kansas City rookie Yordano Ventura allowed four runs and eight hits in four innings. He was lifted after 73 pitches and said he would be available for the game against the A’s.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Royals: Colon had been sidelined by a broken middle finger on his right hand.

White Sox: SS Alexei Ramirez (sore hamstring) and 1B Jose Abreu (sprained thumb) did not play.

MR. 162

Royals SS Alcides Escobar started every game this season. His previous career high was 158 games, set in 2011 and matched last year.

“It’s hard for most people, but it’s not hard for him,” Yost said. “He just has that body type that allows him to go out and play at a high level every single day.”

— Associated Press —

University of Kansas Media Release

 

Lawrence, Kan. – Charlie Weis has been relieved of his duties as Head Football Coach at the University of Kansas, KU Athletics Director Sheahon Zenger announced Sunday. Weis was in the third year of a five-year contract.

Zenger named KU defensive coordinator Clint Bowen interim head coach.

 

“I normally do not favor changing coaches mid-season,” Zenger said. “But I believe we have talented coaches and players in this program, and I think this decision gives our players the best chance to begin making progress right away.

“I appreciate what Coach Weis did with several facets of our football program,” Zenger continued. “But we have not made the on-the-field progress we believe we should. I believe new leadership gives our coaches and players the best chance to make a fresh start.”

Zenger informed Weis of his decision Sunday morning, and then spoke to the rest of the coaching staff. “I am grateful for the KU fans, alumni and donors who continue to support our coaches and players.”

“As we continue to elevate the national stature of the University of Kansas, our pursuit of excellence extends beyond our research and instructional missions,” said KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little. “KU alumni, students, fans and supporters expect that Kansas Football will match the other areas in which we excel as a university. After consulting with Dr. Zenger, I am in agreement that it is time for new leadership of our football program.”