{"id":710245,"date":"2026-06-17T22:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T22:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710245\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T22:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T22:13:12","slug":"avila-rebounds-taking-a-shutout-into-the-6th-as-the-royals-beat-washington-6-2-to-avoid-a-sweep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710245\/","title":{"rendered":"Avila rebounds, taking a shutout into the 6th as the Royals beat Washington 6-2 to avoid a sweep"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Luinder Avila took a shutout into the sixth, and the Kansas City Royals hit four solo homers in the first three innings of a 6-2 victory over the Washington Nationals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>                            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26168650960373-480x320.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n                            Kansas City Royals&#8217; Michael Massey hits a solo home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/John McDonnell)(AP Photo\/John McDonnell\/John McDonnell)<\/p>\n<p>                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26168650960373-780x520.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n                                Kansas City Royals&#8217; Michael Massey hits a solo home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/John McDonnell)(AP Photo\/John McDonnell\/John McDonnell)<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Luinder Avila took a shutout into the sixth, and the Kansas City Royals hit four solo homers in the first three innings of a 6-2 victory over the Washington Nationals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Carter Jensen led off the game with a home run, and John Rave, Lane Thomas and Michael Massey also went deep as the Royals avoided a three-game sweep in Washington. Avila (2-3) allowed a run and three hits with a walk and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n<p>Jensen\u2019s drive to right off Zack Littell (6-6) \u2014 his first of four hits \u2014 opened the scoring. Rave added a home run in the second. Then Thomas and Massey hit back-to-back homers in the third.<\/p>\n<p>Rave tripled to lead off the sixth and scored on Isaac Collins\u2019 squeeze bunt. Bobby Witt Jr. added an RBI single later that inning.<\/p>\n<p>Avila rebounded nicely after allowing eight runs in 2\/3 of an inning in <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/astros-royals-score-94c234641afaaa3b458534f66aac9214\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his previous start,<\/a> a 10-8 loss to the Houston Astros. He was pulled Wednesday with two outs in the sixth and a runner on first. CJ Abrams greeted reliever Matt Strahm with an RBI double, then came home on Dylan Crews\u2019 single to make it 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>The Royals won for just the second time in eight games.<\/p>\n<p>Littell allowed four runs and seven hits in five innings. He has lost back-to-back starts after going seven in a row without a defeat.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Kansas City returns home to face St. Louis on Thursday night. Noah Cameron (3-4) starts for the Royals against Matthew Liberatore (3-3).<\/p>\n<p>The Nationals are off Thursday before a series at Tampa Bay. Cade Cavalli (4-4) takes the mound for Washington on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP MLB: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright<br \/>\n                        \u00a9\u00a02026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luinder Avila took a shutout into the sixth, and the Kansas City Royals hit four solo homers in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-710245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}