A finger blister, not the Kansas City Royals, knocked Tampa Bay rookie Alex Cobb out of the game Sunday.

He curbed the Royals on six singles in seven scoreless innings and Ben Zobrist had three hits and drove in two runs to help the Rays beat Kansas City 5-0 on Sunday.

Cobb threw 65 strikes in 81 pitches, but developed a small blister in the seventh inning that led to Rays manager Joe Maddon going to his bullpen. “It’s unfortunate because his pitch limit was in great shape,” Maddon said. “He had plenty left in the tank.”

Cobb (3-0) struck out two and walked none to pick up the victory and lowered his earned run average to 2.57. He has allowed one earned run in 13 innings in two starts since being recalled July 18.

Relievers Cesar Ramos, Joel Peralta and Jake McGee held the Royals to one hit the final two innings to finish off the Rays’ eighth shutout of the season.

“It was a big disappointment,” Cobb said of the blister. “I wanted to throw at least eight innings, maybe nine. We’re short in bullpen. I would have liked to have been able to help that out.”

It is uncertain whether the blister will prevent Cobb from making his start Saturday at Seattle. What is certain is he won’t be going back to the minors. This is Cobb’s third stint this season with the Rays. He said he used to sit at his locker wondering whether he would be tapped on the shoulder and told to report to Maddon’s office for another trip to Triple-A Durham.

“I’ll keep a lookout after every outing, but seven shutout innings never hurts your cause,” Cobb said.

Cobb, a 2006 fourth-round pick, is unbeaten in his first seven major league starts, the first Rays pitcher to accomplish that.

“This is why we went to a six-man (rotation),” Maddon said. “This is the exact reason. You can’t do it unless you have a pitcher that is that effective and big league-ready and Alex is. There’s no tapping on the shoulder.”

When Cobb gave up two singles to lead off the sixth and seventh innings, he quickly worked out of the jams.

“No panic,” Maddon said. “He threw strikes, let the defense play. He made the hitters swing the bat, wasn’t walking people and getting into bad counts. That’s why he was able to get through that relatively easy.”

The Rays scored two runs with two out in the sixth on one hit, a Sam Fuld single, three hit batters and a walk. After Fuld’s hit, Felipe Paulino hit Sean Rodriguez and Desmond Jennings with pitches to load the bases. Blake Wood replaced Paulino and walked Johnny Damon, scoring Fuld. Wood hit Zobrist with a pitch to bring home Rodriguez.

Paulino (1-4), who lost for the fourth time in his past five starts, gave up four runs on seven hits, while walking two and striking out six.

The Rays scored a pair of runs in the third with Evan Longoria driving in Damon with a single. Matt Joyce’s sacrifice fly scored Zobrist with the other run.

Cobb did not allow a runner past first base until the sixth when Matt Treanor and Chris Getz led off with singles. Eric Hosmer and Mitch Maier opened the seventh with singles, but Mike Aviles grounded into a double play.

“We just didn’t come to play today,” Royals leftfielder Alex Gordon said. “I don’t say this a lot, but we deserved to lose. We didn’t do much. We just didn’t show up to play.”

The loss snapped the Royals’ four-game winning streak, matching their longest of the season. The Royals have not had a winning streak of five or more games since Sept. 7-11, 2009 when they won five straight.

Joakim Soria was at his best when the Kansas City Royals needed it most on Saturday night.

Soria worked out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the 10th and Eric Hosmer doubled home the winning run in the bottom of the inning and the Royals rallied for a 5-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Royals have won four straight to match their season-high winning streak.

The Rays loaded the bases in the 10th with none out, but failed to score.

Rookie Aaron Crow, the Royals’ representative at the All-Star game, began the inning by walking Evan Longoria and B.J. Upton. He was replaced by Soria, who gave up a single to Matt Joyce to load the bases.

Soria (5-3) got Casey Kotchman on a comebacker, forcing out Longoria at home. He struck out pinch hitter Sam Fuld and Elliot Johnson looking to end the 10th.

“You can’t say enough about Soria, the job he did,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Bases loaded, nobody out and that’s why he’s so great. He doesn’t get flustered. He doesn’t panic. He just continues to make pitches and got us out of it and put us in a spot where we could win. This is probably as excited as I’ve been for a win all year.”

Mike Moustakas, who drove in the first three Kansas City runs, knew Soria was going to work out of the jam.

“When you’ve got a guy on the mound like that everyone on that field is confident.” Moustakas said. “We knew we were going into that dugout still tied. We knew we were going to have a chance to win that game in the bottom of the 10th because we had Jack out there. He does what he does. He’s arguably one of the best closers in the game. He shut it down. He held us there and Hosmer ended up with a big hit and we’re celebrating right now.”

Johnson struck out on three pitches to end the Rays 10th and strand three runners.

“All three (pitches) looked like hard four-seamers with a little baby cut to them,” Johnson said. “Soria looks like he’s throwing a lot harder than he really is. You look up on the scoreboard and see 92 and you think it was harder than that. He made three really good pitches to me. I’ve got to be ready to hit on those. They were way too close to take. I’ve got to take the bat off my shoulder and be ready to hit. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to try to do something with that pitch and be ready to hit.”

Brandon Gomes (0-1) threw two pitches in the 10th and took the loss. Billy Butler singled to right to lead off the inning. Mike Aviles ran for Butler and scored on Hosmer’s double to left-center.

“I had a pretty good idea it was splitting (the outfielders),” Hosmer said. “With Mikey on first, I was just yelling for him to run, run, run, hoping he would score. I saw he got a good jump off the bat. This is definitely one of the bigger wins for us — to be down to the last out and the next inning first and second with Soria coming in and shutting them down.”

Alex Gordon’s two-out double in the bottom of the ninth scored Alcides Escobar to tie the score at 4-4.

Kyle Farnsworth, who pitched for the Royals the past two seasons, blew his fourth save in 23 attempts.

Desmond Jennings tripled, doubled, scored two runs and drove in a run for the Rays. Jennings, a highly touted prospect who was just recalled from Triple-A Durham, also, walked twice and stole a base.

Jennings led off the game with a triple and scored on Ben Zobrist’s one-out double off Royals left-hander Jeff Francis. The Rays could have added more in the first, but left the bases loaded on Kotchman’s ground out to end the inning.

Jeff Niemann left after six innings, holding the Royals to three runs, two earned, and seven hits, while striking out four and walking none. Niemann is 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA in four July starts.

Johnson tripled to lead off the second and scored on Jennings’ double.

Moustakas, who drove in the first three Kansas City runs, doubled home Butler, who had reached on an Longoria fielding error, and Hosmer, who had singled, to tie the score at 2-2 in the fourth. Moustakas’ sacrifice fly in the sixth scored Hosmer.

Zobrist and Longoria hit back-to-back doubles in the fifth to put the Rays back on top 3-2. With two out in the sixth, Jennings walked and scored on Johnny Damon’s double.

Francis, who is winless in his past seven starts, allowed three runs and nine hits in five innings, while striking out six and walking two.

— Associated Press —

While the Kansas City Royals’ offense was at its best, the momentum changed in the first inning when Luke Hochevar worked out of a big-time mess.

After allowing a run and facing a bases-loaded situation, Hochevar regrouped in the first and helped lead the Royals to a 10-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night. Melky Cabrera had three hits and drove in three runs and Billy Butler homered for the first time in six weeks to pace the offense.

“They load the bases and we got out of it,” Butler said. “In other games, we would not have got out of there with limited damage. That’s a good job by Hoch minimizing the damage and we came in and put some runs up and used that momentum shift for the rest of the game.”

Hochevar (6-8) allowed just one run in the first in what could have been a ruinous inning. He gave up a run on back-to-back doubles by Johnny Damon and Ben Zobrist to open the game and walked Casey Kotchman and Evan Longoria to load the bases with no outs. That prompted a visit to the mound from pitching coach Bob McClure.

Whatever was said appeared to work as Hochevar struck out Matt Joyce. B.J. Upton flied out to right fielder Jeff Francoeur, who threw out Zobrist at the plate for an inning-ending double play. Hochevar retired 11 straight batters after Zobrist’s double to pick up his first victory since June 26.

“I found myself in a jam in the first,” Hochevar said. “You’ve got to find a way to get it done and make quality pitches. I walked two guys in that inning, but then I was just bearing down and making pitches. I pop Upton up and Frenchy makes the catch and an outstanding throw. We’ve been doing that all season.”

That was the Royals’ 19th outfield assist on a runner out at the plate.

“I kind of hit a groove,” Hochevar said after the first. “I felt like I was commanding the ball on both sides of the plate. In the sixth, I fell behind two guys and made two mistakes. That’s what happens when you make mistakes when you’re behind in the count.”

Francoeur went 3 for 5 with an RBI and Eric Hosmer drove in a pair of runs with two hits as every Royals starter had at least one hit and Kansas City finished with 16 overall. The Royals have won three straight, one shy of their season-high longest winning streak.

The Royals scored three runs in the bottom of the first off Rays right-hander Wade Davis (7-7).

Alex Gordon and Cabrera led off the inning with doubles. After one out, Hosmer doubled home Cabrera. Mike Moustakas snapped an 0-for-22 skid with a run-producing single.

“Hoch did a great job on controlling that first inning,” Hosmer said. “It could have got ugly. He buried down and made some good pitches. We came out and had a big first inning. That’s all Hoch needed until that one inning. The bullpen took care of the rest.”

Butler hit his seventh home run in the third inning, his first since June 10 — a span of 116 at-bats. Butler added an RBI single in the Royals’ two-run seventh.

The Royals scored an unearned run in the fifth to hike their lead to 5-1. Francoeur doubled and scored when Moustakas hit a fly to right-center that Upton had in his glove, but right fielder Joyce ran into him and knocked the ball loose for an error.

Longoria and Joyce hit back-to-back home runs in the Rays’ three-run sixth, cutting the lead to 5-4, and chasing Hochevar. He allowed four runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings, walking two, hitting a batter and striking out two.

The Royals countered with three runs in the sixth, which included run-producing two-out singles by Cabrera, Francoeur and Hosmer.

“It was horrible,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “There was nothing we did good at all today. We let that one get away. That was not the Rays out there tonight. That was not us. We made too many mistakes.

“We came out good. Johnny and Ben hit doubles and all of a sudden we have the bases loaded and nobody out and we’ve got a run in, and all we get is one point. We’ve done that a lot. We have to do better than that. We didn’t do anything well tonight. Moving forward that can’t be a part of anything we do.”

Royals rookie Nate Adcock worked the ninth inning, the first time he has pitched since July 1.

— Associated Press —