KC Royals-Chicago White Sox game recap, box score | July 22, 2017 | Wichita Eagle

Mike Moustakas flipped his bat to the ground and put his head down as another baseball soared through the sky, creating a parabola in the humid night air. He had wished for a breaking ball, and he had received one, unleashing his compact stroke on another pitch.

As the baseball reached its destination in the right-field bullpen, bouncing once and greeting a group of White Sox relievers, the Royals’ dugout could sense the moment. Salvador Perez slapped the padding of the dugout rail as his mouth formed a megawatt smile. Danny Duffy screamed in delight as a crowd of 34,088 inside Kauffman Stadium let out a collective sound: Moooooose.

In a 7-2 victory over the White Sox on Saturday night, Moustakas delivered the decisive shot, a 375-foot solo blast against Chicago reliever David Holmberg in the sixth inning that propelled the Royals to a fourth-straight victory.

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The home run represented Moustakas’ 27th of the year … before his 28th in the bottom of the eighth. In moments, the Royals outlasted White Sox starter Mike Pelfrey, erased a 2-0 deficit and pummeled Holmberg with a flurry of power in a five-run sixth inning. And for another night, Moustakas was at the heart of the offensive attack.

“It’s unbelievable,” Perez said.

“It’s fun to watch,” starter Jason Vargas added.

“We just put some good swings on some good pitches,” Moustakas said.

The barrage began when Perez saw an 0-1 change-up from Holmberg and hammered his 19th homer, a towering shot to left-center with Lorenzo Cain on base. It continued when Moustakas launched an 0-1 breaking ball high into the air, breaking a 2-2 tie. It concluded when Brandon Moss clubbed a baseball into the fountains in right field, his second homer in four days.

The Royals homered three times in one inning for the first time since June 10 in San Diego. They added a fourth in the seventh inning by rookie Jorge Bonifacio, his 12th, and a fifth from Moustakas, who went deep again in the eighth. The Royals matched a franchise record for the most homers in one game at Kauffman Stadium. Cue the Balboni Watch.

For nine games in July, including seven after his participation in the Home Run Derby, Moustakas had gone without a homer. He said Saturday that he did not know how long the drought had been. But after cranking a homer in Friday’s 7-6 victory, Moustakas now has three in his last two games, the most important coming in the sixth inning Saturday.

Moments after Perez tied the game with a 417-foot shot, Moustakas stepped into the box against Holmberg, fell behind 0-1 and looked for a curveball.

“I was trying to sit on an off-speed pitch,” Moustakas said. “Just looking at the reports, there was a pretty good idea he was going to throw one there. I got enough of it.”

The staccato rhythm of baseballs colliding with bat barrels helped secure a series victory and pushed the Royals back to two games above .500 at 49-47. They remain 1  1/2 games behind first-place Cleveland in the American League Central. The Royals can close out a series sweep against the rebuilding White Sox on Sunday afternoon.

Before the offensive display, Vargas allowed two runs in five innings, bouncing back from two poor starts, each sandwiched around the All-Star break. Reliever Scott Alexander offered another crucial escape, stranding two base runners after replacing Vargas in the top of the sixth. In that moment, the Royals trailed 2-0 with two runners on and nobody out. Alexander put on a masterful display of sinker-ball pitching, inducing ground balls and escaping the jam.

“In that situation, I’m just trying to come in and not do too much,” he said.

For five innings, Vargas battled extreme humidity and the White Sox offense. He surrendered just single runs in the third and fifth before he appeared to run out of gas. One of the runs came on a slider to Melky Cabrera that slipped out of his grip and ended up as a solo homer. Inside the dugout, manager Ned Yost formulated his bullpen plan in the middle innings.

“You know,” Yost said, “fatigue starts to set in.”

The bullpen offered another strong performance, recording four scoreless innings and dropping its ERA to 2.33 in July. The offense continued to explode after a quiet period earlier this month.

On Tuesday, they lost 9-3 to the Detroit Tigers, suffering their seventh loss in eight games. In that span, they had scored just 19 runs. In the four games since, they have turned electric, piling up 34 runs and soothing any concerns about a possible July swoon. On Saturday, the story of the offensive performance began early in the afternoon.

As the temperature touched 100 degrees at just past 3 p.m., Alex Gordon appeared in the tunnel adjacent to the Royals’ clubhouse and headed to the field. All week, Yost had canceled batting practice, electing to conserve energy during an oppressive heat wave. Yet after three straight victories, including a walk-off win on Friday night, a collection of players asked hitting coach Dale Sveum to hit on the field. So here was Gordon, dripping in sweat as he ripped batting practice fastballs all over Kauffman Stadium.

Most of the Royals’ regulars remained in the air-conditioned batting cage underneath the dugout. For five innings against Pelfrey, the Wichita native and White Sox starter, the early hitting had little effect. And then it all changed.

Pelfrey’s pitch count eclipsed 100 pitches in the sixth. On came Holmberg, and the Royals started pouncing on mistakes, sending a large crowd — one that braved the heat and took home Eric Hosmer bobbleheads — into a frenzy.

When the night was over, the Royals remained 1  1/2 games out of first. And Moustakas had recorded the sixth multihomer game of his career and stood just eight homers away from tying Steve Balboni’s franchise record of 36 homers in a season.

Moustakas is on pace for 47 home runs. He is leading an offense and juicing his potential value on the free-agent market this winter. But for now, he belongs to the Royals, and his bat helped light the fuse in another win on another hot night.

“It was a good sixth,” Moustakas said.

Chicago	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Saladino ss	4	1	0	0	1	0	.195
Cabrera lf	4	1	4	2	0	0	.296
Abreu 1b	3	0	1	0	1	1	.293
Garcia rf	4	0	1	0	0	0	.312
Davidson dh	4	0	2	0	0	0	.247
Moncada 2b	3	0	0	0	1	0	.111
Sanchez 3b	4	0	0	0	0	1	.256
Smith c	3	0	0	0	0	0	.262
a-Hanson ph	1	0	0	0	0	1	.216
Engel cf	3	0	0	0	0	0	.227
b-Narvaez ph	1	0	0	0	0	0	.260
Totals	34	2	8	2	3	3

Kansas City	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Merrifield 2b	2	0	1	1	2	0	.289
Bonifacio rf	4	1	1	1	0	1	.252
Cain cf	3	1	1	0	1	0	.265
Hosmer 1b	2	0	0	0	2	0	.313
Perez c	4	1	1	2	0	2	.284
Moustakas 3b	4	2	2	2	0	0	.277
Escobar ss	4	0	0	0	0	0	.234
Moss dh	3	1	1	1	1	1	.208
Gordon lf	4	1	2	0	0	2	.207
Totals	30	7	9	7	6	6

Chicago	001	010	000	—	2	8	0
Kansas City	000	005	11x	—	7	9	0

Chicago	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Pelfrey	5	2	1	1	6	4	103	4.46
Holmberg, L, 1-3	2/3	4	4	4	0	0	17	3.83
Minaya	1 1/3	2	1	1	0	1	20	5.12
Goldberg	1	1	1	1	0	1	15	22.50

Kansas City	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Vargas	5	7	2	2	1	2	84	3.08
Alexander, W, 2-3	1	0	0	0	0	0	16	2.08
Moylan	1	1	0	0	1	0	23	4.72
Soria	1	0	0	0	1	0	18	3.29
Alburquerque	1	0	0	0	0	1	21	3.60

This story was originally published July 22, 2017 9:44 PM.