KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Nothing to worry about yet.
The Royals offensively were flat for the second straight game and fell to the Yankees, 8-1, on Monday night in front of 31,758 fans, most of whom were there, judging by the cheering for the Yankees all night, for Derek Jeter's sendoff.
The Royals perhaps were more interested in those proceedings as well. For the second straight game they were held to one run.
Yanks starter Michael Pineda held the Royals to one run through 6 1/3 innings.
"He was good tonight," left fielder Alex Gordon said. "Threw strikes. His fastball was moving. Good changeup. That's baseball."
The Royals lost consecutive games for the first time since July 27 and July 29.
"It happens in this game," Gordon said. "We're not too worried."
Kansas City did, however, remain 1 1/2 games ahead of second-place Detroit in the Central.
The Royals hung close for six innings, trailing only 2-1. Then starter James Shields got peppered for four runs in the seventh to decide the issue. The Royals have not been a big come-from-behind team this year.
"For the last month I've been throwing the ball pretty well," Shields said. "Tonight was just a hiccup and we'll move on past that."
3 UP
-- Moose bomb. Mike Moustakas got a good swing against Pineda in the third. Moose stepped into a belt-high fastball and whacked a laser 401 feet to right field for his 15th homer of the season.
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"Pineda was really good," Moose said. "But we did get some good swings on him. Our hard-hit balls didn't find any holes."
Moose is now tied again for the team lead, this time with Gordon and Sal Perez. The rest of the Royals did precious little against Pineda.
-- A good sign for Sal? Perez came into the game entrenched in a noticeable slump. In his last 16 games, Perez had a slash line of .169/.194/.322. But Perez hit two bullets his first two times up, a liner caught by the second baseman and another liner caught by the third baseman. Then Perez crushed a line-drive double off the center-field wall in the seventh.
"Pineda will give you a pitch to hit now and then," manager Ned Yost said. "But tonight we just hit some balls right at people and they hit some balls that found holes."
Perez also threw a runner out at second on a strike-'em-out-throw-'em-out.
-- Billy's defense. First baseman Billy Butler made several fine plays in the field, including a nice snare of a grounder, a pivot and a strike to shortstop Alcides Escobar for a forceout. Butler also singled in his first at-bat.
3 DOWN
-- No Big Game from James. Shields had his moments of controlling the Yankees, but he couldn't keep the Royals close. After giving up just two runs through six, he let the Yankees pull away with a four-run seventh.
The first two runs off Shields in the game were odd. He booted a grounder by Ichiro Suzuki in the third, then threw wildly to first and Suzuki wound up on second. Two ground balls later, Suzuki was home. Then Shields got ahead of light-hitting Stephen Drew (.172) in the fourth, 0-2, but fell back to 3-2, and Drew hit the full-count pitch for a home run.
-- Dyson picked off. Jarrod Dyson led off the first with an infield single, and it looked like the Royals might be off and running against Pineda. But Dyson started toward second with Omar Infante up, and as he tried to return to first on Pineda's pickoff throw, he slipped. Dyson was an easy out, and a promising first was short-circuited. Dyson, though, did single and stole a base in the sixth but was stranded.
-- Alex's lost look. One hitter Pineda dominated was Gordon. Gordon got called out on strikes in the first, grounded out to first to lead off the fourth, and with a runner on second and two out in the sixth in a 2-1 game, he hit a weak grounder back to the mound. Gordon did single sharply in the ninth with the Royals down, 8-1.
You can follow Jeffrey Flanagan on Twitter at @jflanagankc or email him at jeffreyflanagan6@gmail.com.
