KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gavin Williams held Kansas City to one hit through seven innings in his second major league start, Will Brennan hit a two-run double in the ninth inning, and the Cleveland Guardians rallied past the Royals 2-1 on Tuesday night.

Kansas City had broken a scoreless tie in the eighth on a comebacker by Nicky Lopez against Trevor Stephan (4-3), who threw wildly to the plate while trying to cut down the run.

Emmanuel Clase worked around another error in the ninth to complete the two-hitter and earn his 24th save.

Guardians manager Terry Francona missed the game. He felt ill earlier Tuesday and was taken to a hospital to be evaluated because of his medical history.

Williams, Cleveland's top pitching prospect, was superb after his slightly shaky debut last week. He struck out six, walked one and needed only 92 pitches to get through seven innings. Williams became the second pitcher in franchise history with a one-hit outing of seven innings or more during his first two appearances.

He faced his only real trouble in the third and retired Bobby Witt Jr. on a lineout with two runners on.

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Jaison Chourio ended the day going 2-3, 2 runs, 2 walks, 1 strikeout, avg .381, ops .973 in a Guardian loss.

Thanks Joe;
Chourio will quickly move into our top 10 or maybe 5 prospects along with fellow teenager Francisca.

Need to specify which Naylor is which!
I like the way Bo is handling the running game, he's caught 3 stealing out of 10, which is better than the major league average.
As a hitter he's struck out 10 of 26 at bats, which looks bad except when compared to Zunino. Only 2 walks so far and 3 singles

Amed Rosario hit into his 10th double play of the season; that's always been a personal speciality but he's at a career high.
Can't have Kwan running on each pitch through to Rosario

It is nice to play KC and OAK. We are now in first place with a below 500 record.

Jose with a grand slam. His stats are dramatically better than the two finalists for AL All Star 3b at least we know he'll make the team

Bo with two singles a walk and his first homerun
Bell a monster blast.
The only downside: Allen again threw far too many pitches and forced them to go to the bullpen in the 4th. Despite his fine ERA Allen probably will be the loser when they go back to 5 man rotation. He can work on increase his pitching efficiency in Columbus.

Should have been an easy win; at least it was a win.

Twins get KC; we get the Braves. Elder 6-1 2.44 against Williams 0-0 2,84. We were tied with the Twins. Gotta hope we salvage a game against the Braves and KC does the same against the Twins. Hate to be back 3 games at this point in the season. These are critical series for both the Twins and the Guards. Moreso the Guards.

One team with 160 home runs; one with 55. Make that 3 more for the winners, none for the losers.

Stopped the Braves win streak with a rally and a blown save and a 10th inning game winner from the surprising David Fry.
Bieber was not good. Even if he's not traded, we may have a new top of the rotation next year in Bibee or Williams. A

yet another absolutely dreadful game forQuantrill. barely made it out of the 1st inning; now it looks like they'll let him hang around a few more innings to save the bullpen. too bad they cannot rush Michael Kelly back from Columbus to pitch the 6th.
I can only hope that he is on his way to join Plesac; he has options remaining and perhaps he can re-learn how to pitch
There's really no one else down there to replace him other than Allen who they're trying to semi=rest. He worked 3 very effective innings yesterday but that was it
Gaddis has been terrible
Cantillo has been effective but his command needs refinement.
Plesac AAA ERA is over 7
That's it.

Francona didn't think it was so bad nor did Quantrill. Lots of first inning hits just made it through the infield. The Braves are good hitters. allowing them 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings is apparently big deal nor is wearing out the bullpen.
With McKenzie out for the rest of the season, probably, and hoping to limit the workload of the 3 rookie starters, there's not much to do about Quantrill apparently other than to put him out there every 5 days and hope he returns to prior success sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile the offense successfully put 2 men on base in each of the first 6 innings with nothing to show for it.

CLEVELAND -- The Guardians had no problem getting runners on base against the Braves on Wednesday night. The struggles came in bringing them home.

Despite putting a runner on base in almost every inning, the Guardians could not get the big hit during an 8-1 loss in the rubber game of the series at Progressive Field.

Most of the traffic came early on against Atlanta starter Michael Soroka, as Cleveland put two on base in each of the first six innings, five of which were against Soroka.

In the first inning, with the Guardians already facing a 4-0 deficit thanks to a shaky first frame by starter Cal Quantrill, they had runners on second and third with one out, but the rally ended via an Andrés Giménez strikeout and Josh Bell groundout.

Cleveland faced the same scenario in the next inning, but it wasn’t able to capitalize after strikeouts from Bo Naylor (after an 11-pitch at-bat) and Myles Straw, along with an inning-ending groundout from Steven Kwan.

“We got a couple guys on, but to [Soroka’s] credit, he struck some guys out,” manager Terry Francona said. “We got his pitch count up high, we just didn’t have anything to show for it.”

The theme continued the rest of the game. The next inning, Cleveland once again had runners on second and third with none out, but a strikeout and flyout ended the rally. In the fourth, an Amed Rosario groundout snuffed out a second and third, two-out opportunity.

After the Guardians finally chased Soroka in the fifth inning (he allowed five hits and walked three in his 4 2/3 innings of work), Braves third baseman Austin Riley kept the Guardians off the board with a fantastic stop on a David Fry grounder that saved two runs.

“That kid at third base made some really good plays,” Francona said. “They’re very athletic, that’s part of why they’re good.”

As mentioned above, the Guardians spent all 27 outs playing from behind after the Braves’ powerhouse offense dinked-and-dunked its way through a productive first inning. After Ronald Acuña Jr. started the game with a 101.7 mph lineout to José Ramírez, the Braves tallied two runs on four straight hits, none of which were hit more than 85 mph.

Too bad Bibee had to leave after 5; his pitching efficiency needs to improve too, but not his ability to get outs
Fine bullpen work by the "?second tier" Morgan, DelosSantos, Hentges and Sandlin

The umpires are not helping. They are making up their own strike zones. Umpire last night needs to go back to the minors. These guys are terrible for both teams. Matt Underwood said during rain delay that the pitchers need to learn to adjust to each umpire's strike zone ! Screw that ! There is one strike zone ! Call it correctly or get out !

7 shutout 2 hit no walk innings for Civale, his ERA about 2.50.. Although asterisk affixed for pitching to the Royals.
Bell a long homer, he only hits long homers it appears, 9 total.