Road skid snapped, Royals seek series win against Angels

After grinding out a 7-6 victory in Friday night's series opener, the Kansas City Royals can exhale a little as they try for the series win Saturday night against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif.

Thanks to a career night from first baseman Jac Caglianone, the Royals snapped a seven-game road losing streak, including three close games up Interstate-5 to the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to begin Kansas City's six-game Southern California road trip.

Caglianone, the sixth overall pick of the 2024 MLB Draft out of the University of Florida, homered among three hits and drove in a career-high five runs to lead the Royals to their first road victory since July 29 vs. Minnesota.

"It's good to get one on the road," Caglianone said. "I feel like the Dodgers' series we were right there. First two games, going in late with a lead. Everybody out here is doing everything they can, I feel like."

Caglianone extended his hitting streak to 12 games, the longest current streak in the majors, and has been hot in August, batting .438 with five home runs, four doubles and 18 RBIs in 12 games.

"He's calm. He believes in what he's doing right now," Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro said. "He's got confidence. He's obviously seeing the ball well. He's not expanding as much, chasing as much, as he was earlier."

Royals right-hander Randy Dobnak (2-1, 2.00 ERA) will try to make it back-to-back road wins for the first time since July 25-26 at Detroit when he takes the mound Saturday against Los Angeles left-hander Reid Detmers (3-8, 4.00).

Dobnak has faced the Angels just once in his career, in relief in 2021 with the Minnesota Twins when he allowed five runs on six hits in 2 1/3 innings in a 10-3 loss.

Detmers, the object of strong trade rumors at the trade deadline earlier this month, has gone nine consecutive starts without a win and is still searching for his first home victory this season. He is 0-1 with a 6.35 ERA in six career appearances (four starts) against Kansas City, and All-Star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. has two homers in 11 career at-bats against him.

Los Angeles had a three-game winning streak snapped with Friday's loss and fell to 0-4 against the Royals this season.

First baseman Nolan Schanuel went 2-for-4 with a double and matched his career high with four RBIs, and Josh Lowe smacked his ninth home run as the Angels, who had 15 hits in a 7-0 blanking of Texas on Thursday, finished with 10 hits.

Los Angeles, which went 16 games without scoring more than four runs, has scored at least five runs in three straight games.

"Just being able to not depend on the home run," Schanuel said when asked about the offensive turnaround by The Orange County Register. "I think that's kind of what we've been doing. A lot more singles. A lot more doubles and just working team at-bats, getting guys over when we need to. Somebody's got to step up at a big point, and today happened to be me."