Mike Yastrzemski belts 2 homers as Royals thump Athletics

Mike Yastrzemski homered twice to help the visiting Kansas City Royals to a 9-2 win against the Athletics in the season finale for both teams Sunday afternoon in Sacramento, Calif.

Carter Jensen also homered, singled twice and scored three times, while Michael Massey added four hits, an RBI and two runs scored and Maikel Garcia had two hits, two RBIs and scored a run for the Royals (82-80), who won three of their last four.

Kansas City starter Cole Ragans blanked the A's on two hits over 4 1/3 innings, striking out eight and walking one.

Daniel Lynch IV (6-2) pitched 2 1/3 innings of hitless relief to earn the win.

Brady Basso (1-1) started for the A's and took the loss after allowing one run and three hits over 1 1/3 innings.

Nick Kurtz homered for the A's (76-86), who went 13-11 in September.

The Royals could not take advantage of a leadoff double in the first, but they capitalized on a leadoff single by Jensen in the second. Adam Frazier then hit a hard grounder to Kurtz at first, but he bobbled the ball and only had time to tag his bag.

Massey then pulled a hard line drive to right that went off the glove of right fielder JJ Bleday for a single, putting runners on the corners. Following a walk to John Rave, Basso was replaced by Tyler Ferguson, who gave up a sacrifice fly on his first pitch to Garcia, giving the Royals a 1-0 lead.

Frazier led off the fourth with a single. Massey then grounded a base hit through the right side and it went under the glove of Bleday as he charged the ball, allowing Frazier to score from first to make it 2-0 and Massey continued to third.

The A's got the second out of the inning, but Garcia blooped a single to right-center, scoring Massey to make it 3-0.

Kansas City tacked on a run in the fifth on an RBI single by Massey before Yastrzemski and Jensen led off the seventh with home runs to make it 6-0.

The Royals weren't done in the inning as Bobby Witt Jr. added a two-run double to make it 8-0.

Yastrzemski hit another home run in the eighth to make it 9-0.

Kurtz hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth, his 36th of the season, bringing the score to 9-2.

--Field Level Media