Once the Kansas City Royals weathered the Opening Day hype around Albert Pujols and the Los Angeles Angels, the majors’ youngest team calmly showed why baseball might want to start getting excited about them, too.

Eric Hosmer and Billy Butler homered and drove in three runs apiece, and the Royals beat the Angels 7-3 Sunday, taking two of three in their season-opening series.

Jonathan Sanchez (1-0) survived through five innings to win his first start with the Royals, who dampened the revamped Angels’ much-hyped home debut with two victories after getting shut out on Friday. For a club with 16 losing seasons in the last 17 years, the weekend was undeniably exciting.

“We had one bad inning in the whole series, really,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said, referring to the Angels’ five-run eighth on Friday night. “Besides that, we played great. … We knew there would be a lot of hype. They’ve got a phenomenal team, and we knew it would be a big challenge, but we stood up and played them extremely well.”

Butler hit a two-run homer off Ervin Santana (0-1) in the first inning that barely eluded Peter Bourjos’ glove at the center field wall, and Hosmer added a two-run shot in the fifth before scoring his third run of the day on Butler’s double in the seventh. Hosmer, the Royals’ prized 22-year-old first baseman, also homered Saturday, getting off to a dynamic start to his first full major league season.

“It was a good test for our ball team,” Hosmer said. “I think this was a big statement for us to take two of three. It was big for our team to bounce back and take the series.”

Sanchez allowed four hits and three walks, but was resilient in his debut for the Royals, who acquired him last November in a trade with San Francisco for Melky Cabrera.

Pujols went 2 for 3 with a double and two walks, driving in his first run for the Angels with a first-inning groundout. Los Angeles’ new $240 million slugger went 3 for 10 with two doubles in his first three games at Angel Stadium.

Vernon Wells homered in the eighth, but Los Angeles again struggled defensively, foundered at the plate with runners in scoring position (0 for 13) and didn’t get what’s expected from its vaunted starting rotation after Santana yielded seven hits and six runs while failing to get out of the sixth inning.

“There’s a lot of things that went south in the last two games,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “They have a good offensive club, but if you make your pitches, you’re going to pitch well against them, as Jered (Weaver) showed in Game 1.

After Weaver blanked the Royals for eight innings on opening day, the Angels’ next two pitchers haven’t lived up to their billing. Kansas City battered Dan Haren on Saturday, and Santana allowed a runner to reach scoring position in all but one of his 5 2/3 innings.

“(Santana) looked a little out of sync in his delivery, and he wasn’t able to repeat pitches,” Scioscia said. “His ball-strike ratio was terrible, and when he got into a tough part of the game, he was behind everybody. Those guys got some fastballs to hit, and they didn’t miss them.”

Wells snapped a 1-for-11 start to his season with a homer into the bullpen off Kelvin Herrera, but Crow stopped the Angels’ rally, stranding two runners in scoring position. Howie Kendrick and Pujols reached base to open the ninth, but Jonathan Broxton relieved Aaron Crow and struck out Torii Hunter, Wells and Kendrys Morales for an impressive finish to his first save for the Royals.

“It’s not a concern. The talent is there,” said Mark Trumbo, who had two hits. “I mean, who’s to say we can’t go on a real nice run on this road trip? I think everyone is actually swinging the bat well. We just haven’t had a tremendous amount of luck with runners in scoring position just yet.”

Trumbo, the Angels’ new third baseman, mishandled a grounder in the sixth inning for his third error in three games. Trumbo led Los Angeles in homers and RBIs as a rookie last season, but is trying to learn a new position on the job after Pujols supplanted him at first base.

— Associated Press —

Luke Hochevar was tired of getting knocked around by the Los Angeles Angels so he took a new approach.

Hochevar took a shutout into the seventh inning and the Kansas City Royals got solo homers from Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas against Dan Haren in a 6-3 victory Saturday.

“That’s a good ballclub, no doubt about it, and it’s not an easy lineup to navigate through,” Hochevar said. “They’re stacked from one to nine, so I knew that I had to execute a lot of quality pitches. That was my focus, especially with Haren on the mound. Early on, I think the results were better than my execution, and then I kind of hit a groove in the fourth and started making a lot of quality pitches in key situations.”

Hochevar (1-0) was charged with two runs and five hits over 6 1/3 innings in his season debut. The right-hander, who was the first overall pick in the 2006 draft by the Royals and their opening-day starter last year, came in 0-3 with a with an 8.02 ERA in his four previous starts against the Angels.

Hochevar gave up a pair of one-out singles in the seventh and was relieved by Tim Collins with a 5-0 lead. Bobby Abreu lined the left-hander’s first pitch into the right field corner for an RBI double and Torii Hunter scored on a groundout by Vernon Wells.

The Angels, who were shut out through the first five innings a major league-worst 50 times last season — have done so in each of their first two games despite the addition of three-time NL MVP Albert Pujols. Friday night they won their opener 5-0 with a five-run eighth after getting blanked for six innings by Bruce Chen.

“We’re still in spring training mode and pitchers are way ahead of us, but I think we’ll catch up soon. You can’t panic right now with 160 games to go,” Hunter said. “Today was one of those days. Hochevar kept us off-balance and we couldn’t score any runs off him. He changed speeds, had his cutter working, and that’s something we couldn’t make adjustments on.”

Jonathan Broxton, who became the Royals’ closer after two-time All-Star Joakim Soria had season-ending Tommy John surgery April 3, followed Collins and Greg Holland out of the bullpen and got the final three outs after inheriting a 6-2 lead. He gave up a sacrifice fly by Abreu before retiring Wells on a game-ending double play.

Broxton hasn’t had a save since May 2, 2011, with the Dodgers — he was shut down two days later because of bone spurs in his elbow and missed the rest of the season. The Royals signed him as a free agent in November.

“It feels pretty good to get out there again. My elbow felt fine,” said the two-time All-Star. “It was very frustrating last year, especially because I couldn’t go out there and help the team win. I hated that the season ended up the way it did for me, but hopefully they got everything straight. I’m fine right now, so we’ll just continue to go forward.”

Pujols got his first hit with Los Angeles, a double in the fourth. He lined a 2-2 pitch over the head of left fielder Alex Gordon with one out in the fourth and tried to score on a single to left by Kendrys Morales. But Gordon, who won a Gold Glove last season, charged the ball and made a one-hop throw to the plate to get Pujols, whose hook slide appeared to have beaten Humberto Quintero’s tag.

Haren (0-1) gave up five runs and 11 hits over 5 1/3 innings and struck out five. Morales was 4 for 4 with a double in his second game with the Angels after a severe ankle injury in 2010, when he jumped on home plate after a walkoff grand slam.

Jeff Francoeur, playing in his 1,000th regular-season game, hit a two-run single with the bases loaded in the first. It was the fourth straight hit allowed by Haren, who minimized the damage by striking out Betancourt and Moustakas. Quintero led off the Royals’ second with the first of his two doubles and scored on Lorenzo Cain’s sacrifice fly.

“I didn’t make too many quality pitches, and that’s a recipe for disaster,” Haren said. “I threw too many pitches up in the zone and wasn’t really controlling the count too well. Obviously they got off to a quick start, getting four singles in a row, and I just never really got into a rhythm. … But you’ve got to hand it to them. They’ve got a good ballclub and they did the most with the pitches I left out over the plate.”

— Associated Press —