Royals host Nationals, who just swept three games in St. Louis
The Washington Nationals' first three games in Missouri proved fruitful, but the next three come against a team that's been a little more difficult to beat at home.
That might not matter if Gio Gonzalez can keep limiting teams the way he has so far this season Monday night against the Kansas City Royals.
Washington (17-7) canceled out three home losses to Philadelphia with a three-game sweep in St. Louis over the weekend for a fine start to a difficult 10-game road trip that ends with four against the MLB-leading Chicago Cubs.
"For us to be able to come in here and take three games from them, that's huge, especially on this road trip," Sunday starter Max Scherzer told MLB's official website. "This road trip is going to tell us where we're at. We started off well."
It came with Bryce Harper striking out in all four of his at-bats, and the reigning NL MVP is 1 for 17 in his last five games. It's often been Harper and Daniel Murphy pacing the offense, but they'll eventually need Anthony Rendon (.240), Ryan Zimmerman (.219), Jayson Werth (.213), Michael A. Taylor (.190) and Danny Espinosa (.188) to get going. Clint Robinson stepped up with a two-run homer for just his second hit in 23 at-bats this season.
"It's a long season, and it's going to have to come from somewhere other than the same guys every day," Robinson said. "It's got to come from different sources. So today, that was an example of that."
The Washington staff combined to allow two runs in the last two games against the Cardinals, and Gonzalez is one of a few good options to continue the impressive pitching. Gonzalez (1-1, 1.42 ERA) gave up two runs -- one earned -- and five hits in 6 1/3 innings of a 3-0 home loss to the Phillies on Wednesday and has allowed four total earned runs over his four starts with a .196 opponent batting average.
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The left-hander has faced the Royals only once since 2011 but is 3-3 with a 7.49 ERA in eight career starts against them. Salvador Perez (5 for 6) and Eric Hosmer (4 for 6 with two home runs and three walks) have hit him best.
The Washington-Montreal franchise is 9-3 against the Royals and has won two of three in both of its past visits to Kansas City.
Even so, the Royals (13-11) will be happy to return home after a 1-5 road trip on which they avoided going winless only with Sunday's 4-1 win in Seattle. Prior to taking a 1-0 lead in the second inning, they'd gone 27 innings without scoring.
Alcides Escobar was 3 for 5 after going 2 for 24 in his previous six games, while Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain each had two hits.
"We knew we were going to have to find ways to scratch runs across the board, and we did a good job of that," Hosmer, who's 7 for 16 with two home runs in his last four games. "We had some things going on the bases today, we had some big hits."
The Royals are 8-3 at home and haven't lost a series of any real consequence in Kansas City since Minnesota took two of three last July 2-4. They went 4-8 with three series losses from Sept. 4 through the end of the regular season last year but entered that span with a 13-game lead in the AL Central.
Kansas City looks to Edinson Volquez to bounce back after allowing a career high in hits the last time out. Volquez (3-1, 3.34) gave up eight runs and 12 hits in five innings of Tuesday's 9-4 loss at the Los Angeles Angels. The right-hander's ERA jumped more than threefold from 1.09.
Murphy is 6 for 15 against Volquez, but Harper is 0 for 6.
