Major League Baseball
Cleveland 7, Kansas City 1
When: 7:40 PM ET, Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Where: Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri
Temperature: 79°
Umpires: Home - Nestor Ceja, 1B - Derek Thomas, 2B - Nic Lentz, 3B - Will Little
Attendance: 14813

Brayan Rocchio homered and drove in four runs and Tanner Bibee tossed six strong innings leading the visiting Cleveland Guardians past Kansas City 7-1 on Tuesday, sending the Royals to their seventh consecutive loss.

Bibee (11-6) surrendered one run on two hits with three walks and six strikeouts. Kyle Manzardo matched a career high with three hits while Will Brennan had two hits and two runs for the Guardians (80-59), who have won five of their past six.

Cleveland extended its American League Central lead to 4 1/2 games over the second-place Minnesota Twins (75-63) and to 5 1/2 games over the third-place Royals (75-65).

The Royals have managed a total of six hits in the two losses to the Guardians the past two days. Kansas City has been outscored 39-17 during its season-worst losing streak and has scored fewer than three runs in five straight games.

Through the first five innings, Bibee permitted a lone hit -- Bobby Witt Jr.'s first-inning single -- and allowed just one runner past first base.

Rocchio's second-inning sacrifice fly opened the scoring and Andres Gimenez looped an RBI single to left in the fifth for a 2-0 Cleveland lead.

Bibee ran into sixth-inning trouble, allowing a leadoff double to Tommy Pham and walks to Witt and Michael Massey to load the bases ahead of Paul DeJong's one-out sacrifice fly.

After Cleveland's Bo Naylor led off the seventh with a single, Rocchio twice failed to get a bunt down in fair ground before hooking his seventh homer inside the left field foul pole for a 4-1 lead.

Pitching for the first time since leaving the Thursday game in Houston with a minor hand injury, Royals reliever Lucas Erceg loaded the bases in the eighth, allowing two hits and hitting a batter. James McArthur took over on the mound with two outs, and Rocchio drew a run-scoring walk and Steven Kwan delivered a two-run single, capping the scoring.

Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor left the game in the eighth inning due an apparent injury.

Royals starter Brady Singer (9-10) allowed two runs on five hits and two walks with three strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.

Witt had half of Kansas City's four hits, his 57th multi-hit game of the season.

--Field Level Media

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Cleveland   Kansas City
Tanner Bibee Player Brady Singer
Win W/L Loss
6.0 IP 5.2
6 Strikeouts 3
2 Hits 5
1.50 ERA 3.18
Hitting
Cleveland   Kansas City
Kyle Manzardo Player Bobby Witt Jr.
3 Hits 2
0 RBI 0
0 HR 0
4 TB 2
.750 Avg .667
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Cleveland 10 1 14 .294 17 7 7 3 0 0
Kansas City 4 0 5 .133 14 8 1 3 0 0