SURPRISE, Ariz. (AP) — The Royals’ Edinson Volquez allowed one run in the first inning in an otherwise tidy spring training debut, though the Texas Rangers went on to rout Kansas City 10-0 on Thursday.

Volquez was pitching for the first time since Game 5 of the World Series, when he returned from the Dominican Republic for the funeral of his father to allow two hits over six innings.

The Royals went on to beat the New York Mets in 12 innings for their first championship since 1985.

“I’ve got some fans now. Somebody loves me,” said Volquez, who gave a quick bow to the Royals-heavy crowd that cheered as he exited. “Getting a standing ovation in spring training, you don’t see that too often.”

The only run Volquez allowed came when left fielder Brett Eibner lost Mitch Moreland’s high fly ball in the sun, allowing Lewis Brinson to scoot home from second base for a 1-0 lead.

Joey Gallo drove in a run and Ryan Rua’s double brought in two more in the fourth for Texas, while Brett Nicholas hit a two-run homer in the eighth and James Jones went deep in a four-run ninth.

Derek Holland, who was limited to 15 starts the last two years because of knee and shoulder injuries, allowed three hits and a walk in 1 2/3 innings for the Rangers.

“I don’t talk about it. It’s over. I focus on 2016,” Holland said of his health. “I don’t care about what happened in the past. It’s over. I’ve got to look forward to now.”

PROFAR PRODUCES

Once the No. 1 prospect in baseball, Texas SS Jurickson Profar played infield for the first time since March 22, 2013. He missed the last two years with shoulder injuries and was limited to DH duties during the Arizona Fall League. “I feel good,” said Profar, who went 1 for 2 with a walk. “I wish I had more groundballs.”

STARTING TIME

Royals: A notoriously slow starter in spring, Volquez was pleased with performance. He allowed two hits and two walks in 1 2/3 innings while working on a slight mechanical tweak with his fastball.

Rangers: Holland got Jose Martinez to ground out with the bases loaded in the first, then exited with a runner on base in the second. Holland threw 37 pitches.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Royals: RF Jarrod Dyson has a strained right oblique and will likely begin the season on the DL. He felt pain Tuesday and hurt it during his first at-bat Wednesday. Asked about the six-week recovery time, he said: “Anybody can throw a timeline out there. I have to see how my body is going to respond.”

Rangers: RHP Jeremy Guthrie, who spent the past four seasons in Kansas City, was scratched before the first pitch with a stiff lower back. “I tried to pitch,” he said, “but they wouldn’t let me.”

UP NEXT

Royals: RHP Yordano Ventura makes his spring debut against the Padres in Peoria. Ventura had an up-and-down season a year ago after starting out as the opening-day starter.

Rangers: Ian Desmond makes his debut in LF against the Dodgers in Surprise. Desmond spent seven seasons playing SS for the Nationals. He made two appearances in RF for them.

— Associated Press —

SURPRISE, Ariz. (AP) — Promising prospect Kyle Zimmer tossed two scoreless innings for the World Series champion Royals before the Texas Rangers rolled to a 6-2 victory over Kansas City in their Cactus League opener Wednesday.

“I’m excited to get the first one going and hopefully there’s a lot more to come,” said Zimmer, who is trying to make the big league roster after injuries stunted his rapid rise through the minors.

The Royals managed one hit, a double by Mike Moustakas, off Colby Lewis and the Rangers bullpen through the first six innings. Lewis is coming off knee surgery in October.

“We’re just going out there and getting our work in,” said Lewis, who walked two in the first to load the bases before escaping the jam. “Just trying to get into pitching shape.”

Nomar Mazara hit a three-run homer in the ninth and finished with four RBI for Texas. Patrick Kivlehan and Doug Bernier also drove in runs as Texas took the game from its campus co-tenant.

Jorge Bonifacio homered in the sixth for Kansas City and Parker Morin went deep in the eighth.

Chien-Ming Wang, John Lannan and Peter Moylan also made scoreless appearances for the Royals, who took the field for the first time since beating the New York Mets in Game 5 of the World Series.

“It’s nice to do something different,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “We’ve been practicing. We’ve been taking batting practice. Now we get out on a big diamond in front of a crowd and start playing again.”

STARTING TIME

Rangers: Lewis fared better than he did in his spring debut a year ago, when he allowed six runs on five hits — three of them homers — and a walk in one inning against Kansas City.

Royals: Zimmer got help from a double play turned by promising shortstop Raul Mondesi Jr. to get through the second inning. The big right-hander struck out Elvis Andrus to cap his day.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Rangers: RHP Yu Darvish threw 20 pitches from a full-size mound in his second bullpen session Wednesday. Pitching coach Doug Brocail said Darvish, who had Tommy John surgery last March, will continue throwing every two or three days. He is not expected in the rotation until mid-May or early June.

Royals: RF Jarrod Dyson left after two innings with a strained right oblique. Dyson is likely going to platoon at the position with Paulo Orlando, though Travis Snider replaced him Wednesday.

SAL WHO?

Drew Butera started at catcher for Kansas City and had a Salvador Perez-like day. He threw out Delino DeShields in the third inning, then cut down pinch runner Hanser Alberto trying to advance in the fifth.

BELTRE’S BACK

Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre asked for a few extra days before playing a game, so Drew Robinson got the start. Beltre, who turns 37 in April, missed time last season with a torn thumb ligament before a lower back strain hit in the playoffs. “I don’t even know if it’s sore,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. “He came to me and just said, `Hey, look, can we give it another couple of days?”

UP NEXT

Rangers: LHP Derek Holland starts as Texas become the home team against Kansas City, while RHP Jeremy Guthrie — a member of the World Series champions last season — gets a turn against his former team.

Royals: RHP Edinson Volquez starts against the Rangers. LHP Brian Flynn, the star of an intrasquad game this week, gets his opportunity to start nailing down a bullpen job.

— Associated Press —

SURPRISE, Ariz. (AP) — Salvador Perez and the Kansas City Royals have agreed to a contract through 2021 guaranteeing the All-Star catcher an additional $52.5 million over five seasons.

Perez’s agreement was announced Tuesday, one day after his mother, Yilda, had her SUV stolen at gunpoint in Venezuela. His mother was unharmed and the vehicle was later recovered by the national police.

Perez signed with the Royals as a 16-year-old prospect from Venezuela, but shot through the minor league system. He made his big league debut in 2011, became the everyday backstop the following season and has made voted to the All-Star game each of the past three years.

He hit .260 with a career-best 21 homers and 70 RBIs last season, helping the Royals to their second consecutive World Series appearance. They beat the Mets in five games for their first title since 1985.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Several times over the past year, Ned Yost floated the possibility of retirement when his contract to manage the Kansas City Royals expires after the upcoming season.

Then he realized he was having too much fun winning.

So after general manager Dayton Moore signed his own contract extension to remain in charge of the World Series champions, Yost decided to sign on for two more years. That means the 61-year-old Yost is committed to running the Royals’ dugout through at least the 2018 season.

“Once we won), Dayton and I, we didn’t really start talking contracts until the last couple of weeks,” Yost said Thursday at the club’s spring training home in Surprise, Arizona.

“I’ll have to get to the point in ’18 when I’ll have to evaluate it,” he said. “But you work so hard as a group to develop a winner and it’s hard to leave when they still have the ability to win. We think we have that opportunity through the next few years.”

Most of the Royals’ cornerstone players, including first baseman Eric Hosmer, third baseman Mike Moustakas and shortstop Alcides Escobar, are signed through the 2017 season. The Royals also re-signed outfielder Alex Gordon to a four-year deal this past offseason.

“We’ve basically got the same crew,” Yost said. “They’re motivated, excited to get going, but we want to win world championships for Kansas City and this organization.”

The terms of Moore’s contract were not disclosed. The general manager since 2006, he had signed an extension in November 2013 that would have expired after this year.

“This was in the works for a while,” Moore said as pitchers and catchers reported to spring training. “Everybody understands there’s a business side to what we do. It’s just part of it. But Ned and I really felt it was important to make sure all the players were signed and taken care of, and once that’s done, you focus on the stability of the leadership.”

Moore, who grew up a Royals fan, took over a downtrodden franchise in 2006 that hadn’t had a winning season in a dozen years. The team’s farm system was in shambles, fan apathy was at a nadir, and the only thing Kansas City had going for it was a ballpark considered one of the jewels of baseball.

Slowly, Moore began to rebuild the organization through the draft and with a newfound emphasis on international scouting. And over the years, he stockpiled homegrown players that have become the basis of three consecutive winning seasons and back-to-back trips to the World Series.

Kansas City won its first championship since 1985 when it beat the New York Mets last fall.

“You can’t find an individual with a stronger work ethic or dedication to his craft,” Royals president Dan Glass said in a statement. “He possesses all of the qualities you look for starting with his leadership, organizational vision and tireless dedication to the position.”

A longtime Atlanta Braves executive, Moore has been in lockstep with Yost — himself a former Braves bench coach — since promoting him to manager of the Royals during the 2010 season.

After getting off to a slow start, Yost has become one of the most popular managers in franchise history. Whereas he once used an alias to order coffee at Starbucks because he didn’t want anybody to give him grief, these days Yost can’t go anywhere in public without fans asking for a picture.

Last year, he passed Whitey Herzog to become the winningest manager in Royals history. He got his 900th career victory on Aug. 15 and could reach 1,000 at some point this season.

The Royals lost starter Johnny Cueto and second baseman Ben Zobrist to free agency but otherwise return the almost their entire roster from last season. And with the signing of Ian Kennedy to bolster their starting rotation, they believe they have a chance to make another deep playoff run.

“You know, we’re in a really peak period in Kansas City,” Yost said. “We’ve got an outstanding organization with a great leader in Dayton, and we’ve got great players. They’re fun to be around. It’s something I looked at and wanted to be part of for a couple more years.”

— Associaed Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Royals are installing additional netting at Kauffman Stadium that extends toward the outfield end of each team’s dugout to improve the safety for fans sitting along the foul lines.

Several clubs have considered ways to protect fans from foul balls hit into those seats, and some have suggested that similar netting should be mandatory in major league ballparks.

Royals vice president Kevin Uhlich said Wednesday that the club considered several options before deciding on the new netting. The club hopes it strikes a balance between safety and allowing fans sitting in premium seats to have the same kind of ballpark experience as in years past.

The World Series champion Royals play their opener April 4 against the New York Mets, the team they beat in five games for the title.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Royals and third baseman Mike Moustakas agreed Thursday to a $14.3 million, two-year contract that not only avoids arbitration this year but also buys out his final year.

Coming off his first All-Star appearance, the 27-year-old hit .284 last year with 34 doubles, 22 homers and 82 RBIs while also setting career-highs in on-base percentage and slugging.

Kansas City offered $4.2 million and Moustakas countered with $7 million. The sides settled on $5.6 million this season and $8.7 million next season, keeping general manager Dayton Moore’s streak intact of never having taken a case to an arbitration hearing.

All of the Royals’ arbitration-eligible players are under contract for this season.

Moustakas has long been considered one of the franchise cornerstones, ever since he was a first-round pick in the 2007 draft. But after a rapid rise to the major leagues, he went through long periods of disappointment, culminating with a .212 average, 15 homers and 54 RBIs two years ago.

Rather than sulk, Moustakas spent much of the offseason making minor adjustments to his swing, and he was rewarded with easily the best offensive season of his career.

His new contract only solidifies what many view as a two-year window for the Royals to win another World Series. Moustakas will be a free agent in 2018, along with first baseman Eric Hosmer, centerfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar, starting pitcher Jason Vargas and closer Wade Davis.

Recently signed starter Ian Kennedy can also opt out of his contract at that time.

Pitchers and catchers are due to report next week to Surprise, Arizona, for spring training, with the rest of the squad reporting the following week. The first spring training game is March 2.

— Associated Press —