The Kansas City Royals won their first series since May 15-17 (at San Diego Padres) after taking two out three games at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s also their first home series win since their May 9-11 series against the Chicago White Sox.

They also got some more good news as Salvador Perez received his eighth All-Star Game selection in his illustrious career. He is the lone Royals representative and will be alongside Rangers’ Jonah Heim and Orioles’ Adley Rutschman on the American League roster.

Prior to that, they lost a hard-fought series against the Cleveland Guardians falling in two of their three games.

Tuesday’s game was winnable but resulted in a 2-1 loss. It was a pitcher’s dual between Grady Singer and Gavin Williams with neither giving up a run in their starts.

The Royals scored their first and only run in the eighth inning with Dairon Blanco scoring on a bad throw home from relief pitcher Trevor Stephan off the bat of Nicky Lopez.

It was a two-RBI double from K-State alum and Cleveland outfielder Will Brennan that gave them the victory with closer Scott Barlow blowing a save and picking up the loss.

Cleveland would score early and often in their 14-1 blowout win on Thursday. The Guardians scored four in the third inning, two in the fifth and seven runs in the sixth inning to put the game out of reach.

The Royals bounced back after that forgettable outing with a 4-3 series finale win in the tenth inning.

Kansas City’s offense was stagnant for the majority of the game. Their offense wouldn’t produce their first run until the bottom of the eighth inning when Olivares brought home Lopez on a sac fly.

They’d get another one later in the inning with Pratto hitting a clutch RBI single.

Jose Ramirez would score in the top of the tenth after he stole home to give the Guardians a 3-2 lead.

However, Freddy Fremin brought home two runners on a double to win the game and avoid the sweep.

In the series opener against Los Angeles, the Dodgers just chipped away at the Kansas City pitching staff scoring in six of the nine innings, including a three-run top of the eighth inning.

The Royals had opportunities to stay in the game with ten total baserunners, but they were only able to bring home three resulting in a sizable 9-3 defeat.

Saturday’s game saw most of the scoring for both teams early on. Kansas City struck first with a five-spot in the bottom of the first.

Perez brought home the first run of the game on a single followed by a pair of sacrifice flies and a two-RBI single from Drew Waters.

Just a half inning later, the Dodgers got three runs right back to cut the deficit back to two runs.

From there, both starting pitchers found their groove and the scoring came to a stop. That was until Bobby Witt Jr. got an RBI sac fly in the seventh inning.

Los Angeles responded once again with a threat in the top of the eighth, but they were held to just a singular run and Kansas City tied the series up 1-1 going into the rubber match on Sunday.

The Royals took care of business in sealing the series win with a 9-1 victory. The Dodgers would suffer from death by a thousand cuts with none of the Royals’ runs coming on the long ball. Their pitching staff would give up three runs in the fourth and fifth innings and two more in the sixth.

Maikel Garcia would go 4-for-4 with two RBI. All three batters at the bottom of the hitting order had multi-hit days with Waters going 2-for-3 with three runs and a RBI, Kyle Isbel going 2-for-4 with two runs and Lopez went 2-for-5 with four RBI.

Singer had another quality start going seven innings with only four hits, one run and three walks allowed.

Up next this week is a three-game road series against a middling Minnesota Twins team that somehow has a chance to secure a playoff spot despite being a game below .500.

Over the weekend, they stay on the road to play Cleveland once again in a four-game series starting on Thursday evening.

Entering the new week, the Royals are 25-59 and 16.5 games out of first place in the American League Central division.