Red Sox 13, Royals 2: Sox rout Royals to take series win

Well, who even knows with these Red Sox. One week ago, they were dropping seven straight. Yesterday, they were giving up 4-1 leads with a disaster fifth. Today, they scored 13 runs against and defeated the American League's best team in a three-game series.

It wasn't looking like a high-volume offensive game early on, but it was certainly explosive. When the Red Sox were hitting the ball, they were hitting it hard. Hanley Ramirez gave them their first run of the game with a solo shot to left over the bullpen and into the stands. The ball took about a half hour to come down, and reached an apex of 180 feet, apparently higher than any home run since at least 2009. Two innings later, it was David Ortiz unloading with a similarly huge bomb to right to make it 2-0 for the Red Sox.

As was the case with the Royals last night, though, it was the fifth inning which really changed the game. The rally started innocently enough with a Sandy Leon walk, but Mookie Betts got the Red Sox right back to the long ball with his second homer in as many games, with his heading in the same direction as Hanley's, but landing even further back. Now up 4-0, the Red Sox kept piling on. Dustin Pedroia doubled and both David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez drew walks to load the bases for Xander Bogaerts, who cleared them with a double into the gap in left-center field. The floodgates had opened, and the rout was on, with the Sox taking a 6-0 lead.

Of course, we've seen the Sox give away bigger leads than that, so the Sox kept right on rolling in the sixth. Starting with two outs, Mookie Betts drew a walk, then scored on a double from Brock Holt. Pedroia did Holt the same favor with a double of his own, and Ortiz scored Pedroia on a line drive single. If 6-0 wasn't safe, 9-0 seemed pretty good.

Wade Miley, meanwhile, wasn't exactly looking dominant, but he was putting of zeroes all the same. The Royals managed to load the bases with two outs. And if Alex Rios had place his line drive a little bit better, we might have been talking about a very different game. But Mookie Betts was right there to record the out and send it into the second.

Miley had relatively easy innings in the second and third with the help of Sandy Leon, who caught Lorenzo Cain trying to take second, but trouble re-emerged in the fourth, when the first two batters reached base. But Miley got an unproductive out from Alex Rios, and while a double play was overturned on review, Christian Colon flew out to Betts, ending the second threat of the game.

While Miley wasn't completely clean through the sixth, by that point the score was such that it never got particularly scary for the Red Sox starter, and he finished his day without allowing a run. The Sox would tack on another few runs in the last couple innings, with Mookie Betts finishing a single short of the cycle, and Holt, Pedroia, and Bogaerts also notching three hits. Koji Uehara didn't manage to maintain the shutout in what was about as far from a save situation as possible, but a two-run ninth didn't even get the Royals within single digits.