KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The next run Chi Chi Gonzalez gives up in the majors will be his first.

“It is going to be sad,” Gonzalez said, then laughed.

Gonzalez threw a three-hit shutout in his second major league start as the Texas Rangers beat the skidding Kansas City Royals 4-0 Friday night.

The Royals lost for the eighth time in 10 games, while the Rangers have won six of seven and 14 of 18 to move into second place in the AL West behind Houston.

Gonzalez (2-0), the Rangers’ 2013 first-round draft pick out of Oral Roberts, has not allowed a run and yielded only five hits in 14 2/3 innings in his first two starts. He checked the Royals on three singles, walked two and struck out two.

“I had the same jitters just because it was my first away start,” said Gonzalez, but he kept the sellout crowd at Kauffman Stadium quiet.

Gonzalez worked around five walks in 5 2/3 innings to top Boston 8-0 on May 30 in his big league debut.

“I threw more strikes and got ahead of a lot more hitters than in my last outing, which is what I was hoping to do,” Gonzalez said.

He threw 102 pitches in eight innings, and pitching coach Mike Maddux visited him in the dugout.

“I sat down and got a drink of water, Mike came up to me and asked how I was feeling,” Gonzalez said. “I said I felt strong, I felt good. He said `all right, go get `em.” That was the end of that conversation.”

Manager Jeff Banister said it “was not an easy decision” to send him out for the ninth.

“This is a young man that’s fresh in the big leagues, second major league start,” Banister said. “I’m very conscious of where he is. I felt like there was not a lot of stress on any of the innings. I felt he was in still in control, the velocity and pitchability was still there. We had a pitch count we weren’t going beyond.

“We had (Shawn) Tolleson ready if he got into any trouble. He didn’t get into any trouble.”

Mitch Moreland led off the Rangers’ three-run sixth with a homer. Robinson Chirinos celebrated his 31st birthday with a two-run single to finish right-hander Edinson Volquez’s night.

Volquez (4-4) gave up four runs and six hits, while striking out six and walking three in 5 1/3 innings.

Gonzalez, who retired 12 in a row after walking Lorenzo Cain in the first, did not allow a Royal to reach second base until the seventh. Eric Hosmer had a bunt single and Kendrys Morales walked, but Alex Gordon grounded into an inning-ending double play.

“We went through him four times today and still couldn’t solve him,” Royals manager Ned Yost said of Gonzalez.

Delino DeShields led off the game with a triple and scored on Shin-Soo Choo’s groundout.

PHENOM TAMED

Joey Gallo, who hit .417 with two homers and five RBI in his first three Rangers games, struck out four times, three looking.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Rangers: RHP Neftali Feliz (abscess near his right armpit) will begin a rehab assignment Saturday with Triple-A Round Rock. He is scheduled to throw an inning. . OF-IF Ryan Rua (right heel fracture) went 1 for 2 with a two-run homer and was hit by a pitch Thursday in his first rehab game with Round Rock at Reno.

Royals: RHP Kris Medlen (rehabbing from 2014 elbow surgery) will throw off the mound Sunday before returning to Arizona to continue to build up arm strength.

UP NEXT

Rangers: LHP Wandy Rodriguez will make his first June start after a Texas-best 3.22 ERA in May.

Royals: RHP Yordano Ventura gave up a season-high 10 hits, including two homers, in a May 13 loss at Texas.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Trevor Bauer bounced a couple of pitches in the dirt, long before it became a soggy puddle of mud.

He threw a few wide. A couple high and tight.

Even when Bauer did find the strike zone, the Royals were just as powerless to hit him.

The young right-hander allowed only a long two-run homer by Lorenzo Cain while pitching into the seventh inning, and Brandon Moss hit a two-run shot of his own as the Cleveland Indians beat Kansas City 6-2 on Thursday night in a game called early because of rain.

“Early on he had some struggles. He left a pitch over to Cain. After that, he was really good,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “He really competes.”

Bauer (5-2) has allowed two runs or fewer in each of his last four starts, getting to the seventh in each of them. He walked four but also struck out five Thursday night.

“The trend is we’ve been facing good pitching,” said Royals manager Ned Yost, whose team has lost seven of nine. “That’s the trend.”

After struggling to score the previous night, the Indians pounded away against Chris Young (4-2) over the first five innings. They sent eight batters to the plate during a four-run third inning, and Moss added his second homer of the series with nobody out in the fifth.

“I wasn’t as sharp as I’d like to be. But when I made pitches, I felt like they fought it off and fouled it off and took some good ones,” Young said. “They were better than me tonight.”

The game was delayed with one out in the bottom of the eighth as lightning and heavy rain rolled into the area. The umpires waited 44 minutes before calling Cleveland’s sixth win in eight games.

Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley and David Murphy also drove in runs for Cleveland.

The slumping Royals offense never got Bauer in a whole lot of trouble. They didn’t manage a hit until Omar Infante’s single leading off the third, and the only time they punctured the scoreboard came when Cain ripped a two-run shot 422 feet to straightaway center moments later.

Otherwise, the former first-round draft pick harnessed some erratic early stuff to flummox the Kansas City lineup. Bauer made Salvador Perez look foolish with a strikeout to end the second, then rung up Alcides Escobar to leave a runner stranded in the fourth.

The result was Bauer’s first victory in four career starts against the Royals.

Young had been dominant since moving from the bullpen to the Kansas City rotation, allowing just one earned run over his first four starts. But the AL’s comeback player of the year with Seattle last season has struggled the past couple of weeks. Young gave up four runs and seven hits in six innings against the Yankees his last time out.

Not even facing the Indians helped. He’d been 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA in his career against them.

“You play a team that’s hot and locked in the way some of their hitters are,” Young said, “they are going to foul off pitches that maybe they would swing and miss, or they’re going to get hits.”

STATS AND STREAKS

Cain’s homer was his first since May 2, a span of 91 at-bats. … Infante had a single in the third, snapping an 0-for-12 skid. … Moss has a hit in five straight games. He has homered three times in six games at spacious Kauffman Stadium.

NED’S PICKS

Yost selected Seattle’s Lloyd McClendon and Houston’s A.J. Hinch to assist him as coaches at the All-Star game on July 14. Yost said he wanted to let McClendon be a part of the game in Cincinnati, where he made his big league debut, and reward Hinch for Houston’s hot start.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Indians: Brantley was back in the lineup as the DH. He was given Wednesday night off because Francona said he was “pretty beat up.”

Royals: RHP Kris Medlen (Tommy John surgery) and LHP Danny Duffy (biceps tendinitis) threw three innings apiece in a simulated game. Duffy will throw a side session Saturday.

UP NEXT

Indians: RHP Shawn Marcum goes for his fourth straight win against Baltimore in the opener of a three-game series Friday night in Cleveland.

Royals: RHP Edinson Volquez starts against his former team as the Royals wrap up their homestand with a three-game series against the Rangers beginning Friday night.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jason Vargas tossed six sharp innings, the Kansas City offense finally woke up against AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber and the Royals beat the Cleveland Indians 4-2 on Wednesday night.

Mike Moustakas drove in a run in the first inning, and Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer and Kendrys Morales hit consecutive RBI doubles off Kluber (3-6) in the third to give the Royals the lead.

Vargas (4-2) made it stand up in his second start back from the disabled list. The left-hander used a pair of double plays to wiggle out of jams, and limited the streaking Indians to two runs on eight hits while striking out three without a walk.

Greg Holland pitched a perfect ninth for his eighth save.

— Associated Press —