by Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s remember it well last September needing to beat the Kansas City Royals in just one game to advance in the playoffs but the Royals who had such a strong 2014 season shutdown Oakland in the one and done match and the A’s had all winter to ponder their one game loss. Fast forward to Friday night’s 6-4 loss to the Royals it felt all too familiar.

The game included a bench clearing incident when the A’s base runner Brett Lawrie barreled into the Royals shortstop Acides Escobar at second. Escobar took exception to the way Lawrie came into him to break up a double play and the Royals bench emptied and soon the A’s bench emptied. Escobar was angry because the slide injured his knee and Escobar will be out for the rest of this three game series.

Royals manager Ned Yost felt that the slide was not intentional and that Lawrie’s slide was not trying to hurt Escobar. Escobar thinks differently but none the less Escobar will not be back against the A’s for this series, “I’m trying to break up a double play there. It’s a tie game no one is trying to hurt anyone there. That’s just trying to play the game hard” said Lawrie.

The Royals improved their record to 8-2 and rebounded after dropping two straight to the Minnesota Twins prior to this series. The A’s Billy Butler faced his old teammates and Butler is becoming a true hitter in the DH role. He’s hitting .349 although he went 1-4 at the plate on Friday night.

Butler has an 11 game hitting streak and he’s in his first year with the club, the Royals who are now some six games over .500 are doing it not only without Butler but without their former ace pitcher James Shields who went to the Padres in the off season. The other loss in the off season was Nori Akoi who went to San Francisco and ironically the Giants who beat the Royals in the World Series lost their eighth straight game on Friday night 9-0 with Akoi in left for the Giants.

The Royals have replaced Akoi with Alex Rios who ironically is on the 15 day DL, Rios was hit with a pitch and is suffering with a broken hand and could return this week depending on tests. The Royals in the off season signed Edinson Volquez to replace Shields in the off season. Kendrys Morales was signed by the Royals in the off season and is their top designated hitter.

Jerry Feitelberg does A’s commentary weekly and Kahlil Najar is doing the A’s game recap every Friday on http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Jerry’s podcast below