MILWAUKEE (AP) — Chris Young became the first Royals pitcher to drive in three runs in a game since 1972 and worked seven innings of five-hit ball Tuesday night, leading Kansas City to a 7-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Young had a two-run single in the fourth inning and an RBI single in the fifth for the Royals, who have won six of eight after a 2-9 skid. He is the sixth Kansas City pitcher with at least three RBI and the first since Steve Busby.
Young (6-2) struck out three without any walks to improve to 12-2 in interleague starts in his career.
Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas each homered for Kansas City.
Matt Garza (4-8) allowed six runs and a career-high 13 hits in 6 2/3 innings. He is 1-5 at home this year.
Milwaukee is 11-24 at Miller Park after losing its fourth game in a row.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Before the first pitch, manager Mike Matheny noted there are distractions every day for the St. Louis Cardinals. This, he maintained, was just another one.
A federal investigation into possible computer hacking by the team becoming news Monday failed to slow down the team with the major leagues’ best record.
The Cardinals extended their winning streak to five by beating the Minnesota Twins 3-2 behind Michael Wacha’s pitching and Mark Reynolds’ two-run single.
“We’re cooperating and I think they understand it really has nothing to do with us inside the clubhouse right now,” Matheny said. “Our job is to stay focused on what we can do each day, and let that process take care of itself.”
Before the game, Matheny said he was in the weight room when he first learned of the investigation into whether the Cardinals had hacked Houston’s computer database. The Cardinals then completed a soggy homestand in which three games were delayed and another against Kansas City was postponed until July 23.
St. Louis is 43-22 overall and 26-7 at home, both tops in the majors, and matched a franchise best by reaching 43 wins in 64 games.
Minnesota has lost seven of eight and was 1-4 on a trip that featured the debut of Byron Buxton, the second overall pick in 2012.
“He is just one player and he’s played really well and it’s been awesome to see him up here, that’s for sure,” Twins starter Kyle Gibson said. “We’re definitely excited for how he’s going to help the team, and he’s going to.”
Wacha (9-2) halted warmups before the first pitch was delayed 45 minutes and didn’t return after a 47-minute rain delay with one out in the seventh and the Cardinals leading 3-1. He allowed two runs on three hits in 6 1/3 innings.
Wacha endured six weather delays totaling more than six hours last season, so the rain Tuesday was nothing new.
“You just kind of have a sense of what to expect,” Wacha said. “I just stayed mentally ready as well as physically.
“You know, it’s not the first time I went through it.”
Kevin Siegrist stood in for Trevor Rosenthal, who is sidelined by a knot in his biceps, and pitched the ninth for his third save in four chances.
Matheny thought Rosenthal looked better but needed another day, and didn’t think the injury would require a stint on the 15-day disabled list.
“They’ve ruled out anything structural, it’s just one of those times during the season and it just so happened on two nights when he typically would be needed,” Matheny said. “It’s great to see Kevin Siegrist step up once again.”
Yadier Molina doubled for his fourth hit in two games and scored on Randal Grichuk’s sacrifice fly in the second, and Reynolds’ single gave St. Louis a 3-1 lead in the third.
Trevor Plouffe had an RBI double in the first and Kurt Suzuki doubled in a run in the seventh after Seth Maness relieved. Gibson (4-5) allowed three runs and six hits in six innings.
Buxton was easily thrown out stealing by Yadier Molina after reaching on an infield hit leading off the eighth. Matheny said reliever Matt Belisle made it difficult for the rookie to get a good jump.
“The guy was really quick to home,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “It didn’t work out.”
UP NEXT
The teams play at Minnesota on Wednesday and Thursday. Tommy Milone worked seven innings his last time out, allowing only a two-run homer to Elvis Andrus. In his only prior appearance against the Cardinals, he matched a career high surrendering three homers on June 30, 2013, in Oakland. With Carlos Martinez pitching, the Cardinals are 10-2. He’s 7-2 with a 2.93 ERA in his first year in the rotation.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cardinals: Rosenthal has been unavailable the last three games. Lance Lynn, on the DL with a forearm strain, played catch Tuesday and remained on track to return in late June.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Chiefs released wide receiver Da’Rick Rogers and offensive lineman Kelvin Palmer and signed offensive lineman Tavon Rooks before the start of their mandatory minicamp Tuesday.
Rogers, once a college standout for Tennessee, was kicked off the team for disciplinary issues and transferred to Tennessee Tech. But he’s been unable to make it in the NFL, catching just 14 passes for 192 yards and two touchdowns while bouncing through three franchises.
In May, Rogers spent one day in jail after pleading guilty in Indianapolis to drunken driving.
The release of Palmer and the signing of Rooks, a former Kansas State player, is basically a swap of players deep on the depth chart.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Lorenzo Cain hit a two-run homer, and normally lights-out reliever Greg Holland struggled in the ninth before the Kansas City Royals held off the Milwaukee Brewers for an 8-5 win Monday night.
The Royals won in manager Ned Yost’s first regular season game back in Milwaukee since being fired by the Brewers late in the 2008 campaign.
But the victory was more difficult than expected after the Royals entered the bottom of the ninth with an 8-2 lead.
Milwaukee got three runs with nobody out off Holland, the closer pitching in a non-save situation. Jonathan Lucroy’s second double of the night made it 8-5 to chase Holland from the game.
Holland’s ERA ballooned from 1.76 to 3.52 after allowing three runs on four hits and a walk.
Wade Davis retired the next three hitters for his eighth save.
Until the ninth, the Royals had set the tone with a typically aggressive offense. Moustakas drove in leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar with a single in a three-run first inning with Escobar running on the pitch from first.
Cain tacked on his two-run shot in the fifth, his fifth of the season, off starter Kyle Lohse (3-8) for a 5-0 lead.
It was just enough of a cushion for starter Edinson Volquez (6-4), who allowed six hits and two runs in five shaky innings. The damage could have been worse if not for two inning-ending double plays and a hard-hit liner by Lucroy for an out in the third to third baseman Moustakas with runners on base.
Lucroy finished 2 for 4, adding a two-run double with two outs in the fifth. Pinch hitter Martin Maldonado added a two-run single in the ninth off Holland.
But the Brewers wasted too many other opportunities, leaving nine men on base.
Lohse had another poor outing for the Brewers, giving up five runs and five hits in five innings. His ERA rose to 6.44.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Royals: Yost said SP Yordano Ventura (right hand weakness) threw the ball well during a 35-pitch bullpen session. He left Saturday’s game against St. Louis because of the injury. A rainout Sunday with the Cardinals gave the Royals more flexibility with their rotation, and Yost said he would likely push Ventura’s next start back to Friday against the Red Sox in Kansas City.
Brewers: CF Carlos Gomez was scratched from the lineup with right leg tightness. The leg has bothered Gomez since he spent two weeks on the disabled list in late April with a hamstring injury. Gomez also missed a few games last week because of an injury that now seems to be concentrated to the upper part of the leg. Gomez might miss a couple games this week, manager Craig Counsell said.
UP NEXT
Royals: Chris Young (5-2) makes the start on Tuesday in his first appearance since carrying a no-hitter into the seventh inning of a 2-0 win at Minnesota on June 9. Young has a 2.08 ERA in 26 innings on the road this year.
Brewers: Matt Garza (4-7) is 2-5 with a 3.45 ERA in nine career starts against Kansas City.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Yadier Molina homered for the first time this season and John Lackey worked eight strong innings for the St. Louis Cardinals, who won their fourth in a row with a 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Monday night.
Mark Reynolds connected three pitches ahead of Molina in the fourth, giving the Cardinals back-to-back homers.
Randal Grichuk tripled, singled and scored for St. Louis, which is 42-21 overall and 25-7 at home — both major league bests. The Cardinals have won 15 of 20.
Twins rookie Byron Buxton tripled for his first career hit with one out in the eighth and scored on a sacrifice fly by Brian Dozier that cut the gap to a run. Buxton also slammed into the wall, but didn’t stay down long, after just missing a running catch on Grichuk’s triple leading off the third.
Molina dropped about 20 pounds in the offseason, reporting at 220 pounds, and his power profile has suffered. Manager Mike Matheny said before the game the lack of a long ball likely bothered Molina more than fans or teammates.
He averaged 16 homers over a three-year period from 2011-13 before dropping off to seven last season.
Lackey (5-4) bounced back smartly on six days’ rest after getting torched for 10 earned runs in four innings at Colorado. Lackey, whose start was postponed a day by a rainout Sunday, allowed two runs on five hits with six strikeouts and a walk.
Kevin Siegrist finished for his second save in three chances. Closer Trevor Rosenthal, who leads the NL with 21 saves, did not warm up.
Twins rookie starter Trevor May (4-5) gave up a total of four homers his first 11 starts. He allowed three runs in five innings, ending a run of five consecutive starts of six or more.
UP NEXT
Kyle Gibson is 1-1 with a 4.82 ERA his last three starts, all at home. The Cardinals are averaging 6.3 runs for Michael Wacha, among the best in the league.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cardinals: RHP Lance Lynn (forearm strain) remains on track to return from the 15-day DL on time June 23.
Twins: Torii Hunter returned from a two-game suspension.
B.C. Lions quarterback Travis Partridge was among players cut Sunday by the CFL team. Photograph by: Ric Ernst, PNG
By Mike Beamish, Vancouver Sun
KAMLOOPS – Last year’s up and coming quarterback is now down and out for the B.C. Lions.
Second-year player Travis Partridge, who last season looked like he might be a keeper, was one of eight players released Sunday by head coach Jeff Tedford as the Canadian Football League team pared its training camp roster to the mandated limit of 65 (excluding non-counters).
Nickelback Torri Williams, who dressed for 16 games last season, and defensive back Derrick Morgan, running back Brendan Bigelow, offensive linemen John Estes and Kaycee Ike, defensive lineman Alex King and receiver Reggie Jordan were also let go. Jordan, a late addition to camp, played college football with Partridge at Missouri Western.
In a pitched battle with rookies Jon Jennings and Greg McGhee for a roster spot, Partridge is another classic example of a young quarterback unable to keep pace with the development timeline set out for him. Chris Hart (2014) and Corey Leonard (2012) were other developing quarterbacks of recent vintage who didn’t last past their second Lions’ training camp.
The turnover of head coaches from Mike Benevides to Tedford and changes in offensive philosophy also didn’t work to his advantage, although Partridge insisted he didn’t feel extra pressure, being a holdover player forced to prove himself again under a new regime.
“I don’t think there’s any added pressure because there’s a new coaching staff,” he said. “It’s a new system, but I know about (CFL) defences a little more (as a second-player player).”
Partridge dressed for 14 games last season as the team’s third quarterback and saved his best for last, throwing for two touchdown passes after relieving starter Kevin Glenn in a 53-17 East Division semi-final blowout loss to the Montreal Alouettes.
Unfortunately, he was unable to build on that modest success in his second camp, with Jennings and McGhee, two of Tedford’s recruits, looking more the part of what the noted quarterback guru wanted.
Though the Lions failed to score a touchdown in Friday’s 20-6 preseason defeat in Calgary, Jennings put up decent, if not spectacular numbers, showed poise, defensive recognition and the ability to handle and elude the kind of pressure he’ll face in the CFL. He completed five of 11 passes for 116 yards, one of them a 62-yard pass to Terence Jeffers-Harris, a late addition who has stood out in camp.
“Some good things happened, and some not-so-good things happened,” Jennings explained. “But it’s all learning material. I was glad to go out there and show I could make a couple of plays. But there’s some things I need to work on as well.”
Partridge completed two of four passes for a cumulative three yards against the Stampeders. He was intercepted on his second play from scrimmage, evidence that he was forcing the ball and likely aware of falling behind Jennings and McGhee. Interceptions had also bedeviled Partridge in training camp.
Jennings, just 22, graduated from Saginaw Valley State in 2013 as the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s player of the year, throwing for 31 touchdowns and running for 12 more. Those eye-popping stats earned him invites to mini-camps with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lions and a workout with the Green Bay Packers.
“I had a blessed career in Saginaw,” Jennings said. “I didn’t have any injuries. None. Not like high school.”
Jennings grew up in Columbus, Ohio and went to Westerville South, the same school that produced former Lions receiver Nick Moore, now with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and his older brother, Lance Moore, an NFL veteran receiver who has moved on to Detroit.
He broke his ankle and elbow in his sophomore year of high school, played safety in his junior year and fractured his collarbone as a senior quarterback, completing just half a season. That spotty participation record partly explains why Jennings ended up at an NCAA Division II school, where he excelled.
During his 43-game career with the Cardinals, he threw for 10,710 yards and 96 touchdowns.
With the Lions, Jennings is seen as more than just a developmental quarterback. Tedford has declared the backup position behind Travis Lulay to be “wide open.” In addition, Lulay’s history of shoulder troubles could transform his backup pivot into the starter, as it did last season with Glenn.
“It’s very interesting,” Jennings agreed. “I’ve always prided myself on being ready for the next opportunity. I’m just trying to be ready to help this team any way I can.”
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Mike Matheny stared at a weather map that seemed to recycle unfavorable conditions every half hour or so, signed some items and made sure no one fell for the inevitable rumors that the game would be rained out.
“There’s always a jokester walks around who says, `They banged it and it’s over’ and nobody knows what’s truth. So I have to kind of make sure we monitor that,” Matheny said after Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Royals was postponed after a delay of 2 hours, 31 minutes.
“Mark Reynolds wrote that on the board the other day and it wasn’t even raining,” he said. “You get stuck in these dungeons, sometimes you don’t know what’s going on outside.”
During the delay, Matheny also firmed up the rotation. Call-up Tyler Lyons will get at least one more shot, on Friday at Philadelphia, after making a solid showing and earning the victory on Saturday.
The manager could have moved the rest of the starters up. Instead, he looked at the big picture.
“Over the long haul, anytime we can go out there and compete with one of our starters and not continually put the work load on just a few, I think it’ll pay off for us down the road,” Matheny said.
No makeup date has been determined for the final game of the season series. The teams have two mutual open dates, July 23 and Aug. 4.
“I was willing to wait as long as we could,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Those off days are precious and we’re here and I liked the matchup.”
The Cardinals decided it had already been long enough.
Matheny said the forecast was “just kind of repeating itself” with cells coming into St. Louis.
“I think Lackey got ready six times,” Matheny said. “Keeping the fans around here all night around a lot of uncertainty, it looked like something we weren’t going to be able to get around.”
The Cardinals lead the season series 3-2 and outscored the Royals 7-2 the first two games of this three-game set.
St. Louis will stick with John Lackey, the scheduled starter Sunday, on Monday against Minnesota. Lackey said he didn’t do much more than play catch.
“I would have had to get in a game for it to be a big deal,” Lackey said. “I don’t anticipate any problems.”
The Royals will alter their rotation for a two-game series in Milwaukee with Edinson Volquez starting Monday and Chris Young, the scheduled starter Sunday, moving to Tuesday.
“It gives him a day to get his homework done and prepare himself to pitch against Milwaukee, and then stay on regular rotation after that,” Yost said.
Like Lackey, Young was not frustrated.
“Look, it’s life,” he said. “It’s part of the job and what we do. It’s not the first time it’s happened and I hope it’s not the last.”
The Tuesday starting spot had been undetermined with Joe Blanton the probable pitcher. Blanton is now the fallback in case Yordano Ventura, who left Friday’s start after three innings with right hand weakness, has an issue on Wednesday.
The rainout sent home a third straight sellout crowd for the series matching teams with the best record in the National and American leagues.
The postponement is the first at Busch Stadium since May 14, 2014, against the Cubs.
The Cardinals are 41-21 overall and 24-7 at home, both major league bests. They’ve won three in a row and 14 of 19, with pitchers posting a 2.13 ERA, entering a four-game home and home series with the Minnesota Twins starting Monday night in St. Louis.
Yost was true to his word and had resisted shaking up the lineup even though his team has scored two or fewer runs in 12 of the last 17 games.
The Royals were 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position the first two games and are 5 for 33 the first five games of a trip that ends in Milwaukee.
ST. LOUIS — Jason Heyward closed his eyes in the bright glare of the sun, dropped slowly to the turf on his backside, and hoped for the best.
The St. Louis Cardinals right fielder made the key defensive play against the cross-state rival Kansas City Royals strictly by feel, preserving an eighth-inning lead by snaring a sinking liner by Kendrys Morales.
“I saw it off the bat and that was the last time I saw it until I went to throw it in,” Heyward said after the 3-2 victory on Saturday. “I felt it hit my glove and I was surprised when it hit my glove.”
The catch for the second out of the eighth with a man on was certainly deflating for the visitors.
“That was a lucky catch,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “I mean, there’s some skill involved with that, but if you watch the replay he wasn’t even looking.
“That’s when you start thinking, `Whoa, we may be in trouble here.”
Call-up Tyler Lyons had a solid outing and Mark Reynolds hit the go-ahead homer in the fifth for the Cardinals, who held the Royals’ offense down for the second straight day.
“I figured it was either out or it was going to be a can of corn,” Reynolds said. “So I just jogged anyway.”
Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez homered for the Royals, who took two of three from the Cardinals at home last month and will be trying to avoid a sweep in the finale. The series matches teams with the best records in each league and the Royals have been held to two runs and 10 hits.
“Sometimes you go through slumps like this,” Gordon said. “But we’ll get out of it.”
Matt Carpenter and Jason Heyward added an RBI each for St. Louis, which is a major league-best 41-21 overall and 24-7 at home. The Cardinals used five relievers over the last four innings to hold a one-run lead with Trevor Rosenthal getting the last four outs for his league-leading 21st save in 22 chances.
The Royals’ eighth did not lack for dramatics. Rosenthal rallied from a 3-0 count to get Gordon on an infield popup with two on for the third out.
The first two games were sellouts, giving the Cardinals 13 on the year. Most of announced attendance of 45, 981 stuck around after a 24-minute rain delay before the top of the sixth.
Lyons (1-0) allowed two runs and three hits. He failed to make an impression in three starts earlier in the year in place of injured Adam Wainwright, entering with a 5.54 ERA, but fared much better replacing injured Lance Lynn.
Gordon’s eighth homer gave the Royals the lead in the second and Perez tied it at 2 with his 10th homer in the fourth.
The Cardinals scored two runs on five hits in the third, a rally that began with Kolten Wong’s leadoff triple. Reynolds’ fourth homer, in the fifth off Jeremy Guthrie (4-4), snapped a 2-all tie.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Royals: LHP Jason Vargas (forearm strain) was placed on the 15-day DL.
UP NEXT
Chris Young moves up a day to start the series finale for Kansas City. He took a no-hitter into the seventh his last time out. John Lackey is 6-1 with a 2.02 ERA in 11 career starts at Busch Stadium, including 4-1 with a 1.73 ERA this year.
TACTICAL PLAY
Both teams played the infield in with a man on third and one out in the first and didn’t get burned. The Cardinals clicked again in the sixth, helping to preserve the lead, when Matt Belisle got Salvador Perez on a broken-bat groundout.
WEAK PRAISE
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said Lynn was the pitcher who had made the most improvement at the plate “by far — mostly because he couldn’t have gotten much worse.” Lynn is batting .182 with one RBI after entering the year a career .065 hitter.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jaime Garcia pitched eight innings of four-hit ball and saved some shutdown stuff for the media, too.
The St. Louis Cardinals lefty had little to say about perhaps his best outing in two years.
“I’m extremely happy for the team,” Garcia said without conviction after also helping himself with an RBI single in a 4-0 victory that ended the Kansas City Royals’ four-game winning streak Friday night in the opener of a high-profile interleague series.
“When you’re healthy and you’re going out and competing, you’re always happy,” Garcia added. “I’ll enjoy the win tonight for the team and turn the page and get ready for the next one.”
Garcia worked more than seven innings for the first time since May 5, 2013, when he went eight in a 10-1 victory at Milwaukee.
Jon Jay snapped a 2-for-24 slump this month with a two-out RBI triple in the second off Yordano Ventura (3-6), and Garcia followed with his 12th career RBI on an opposite-field single — his first since June 3, 2014, against Kansas City.
The Cardinals are 40-21 overall and 23-7 at home, both major league bests. They got a huge outing from Garcia (2-3), so far a success story off thoracic outlet surgery.
“He was as good as we’ve seen him,” manager Mike Matheny said. “I don’t know if you could ask for anything more.
“It’s no fun to catch, no fun to hit.”
Ventura lasted just three innings for the second straight start, removed as a precaution due to weakness in his pitching hand. In those two starts, he’s allowed six earned runs.
Royals manager Ned Yost said the team was watching closely because Ventura’s velocity was down and in the third the pitcher had trouble with his grip.
Yost said he couldn’t recall the last time he heard the term “right hand weakness.”
“Of course, you have a level of concern because you don’t really know what it is yet,” Yost added. “But we’ll wait till tomorrow and see what’s going on.”
The infield had a meeting on the mound during Ventura’s final at-bat, a flyout by Yadier Molina. Ventura said through translator Christian Colon that his thumb, right ring finger and pinky had gone numb and that he’d felt “really weird.”
Ventura also said he didn’t know whether he’d be able to make his next start.
Garcia struck out six with no walks, fanning Omar Infante to open the eighth for the 500th strikeout of his career, and retired the side in order five times. The lefty lowered his ERA to 2.06 and hasn’t issued a walk in 30 innings.
Garcia has made five starts — the Cardinals have been shut out in three of them — after totaling 16 starts from 2013-14. He’d been 0 for 8 with four strikeouts before the hit.
In the eighth, Randal Grichuk had an RBI triple on a ball that right fielder Alex Rios whiffed on, and Jay added sacrifice fly. Center fielder Lorenzo Cain, who’d also converged on Grichuk’s fly ball, called it a “miscommunication.”
The last four lineup spots combined for five hits, three for extra bases, and three RBI.
“I think you’ve seen that with our lineup before,” Jay said. “Everyone can hit everywhere.”
The Royals got two infield hits with two outs in the sixth but Garcia struck out cleanup man Eric Hosmer on an off-speed pitch that ended up at shoe-top level.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Royals: LHP Danny Duffy (biceps tendinitis) has made one rehab start for Triple-A Omaha, working four innings Wednesday, and could make a few more before rejoining the rotation.
Cardinals: Setup man Jordan Walden (right biceps) could be back before the All-Star break.
UP NEXT
Jeremy Guthrie is 3-0 with a 1.85 ERA in six interleague starts with the Royals. Tyler Lyons, recalled from Triple-A Memphis to replace injured Lance Lynn, was 0-0 with a 5.54 ERA in three starts earlier this season. He’s 3-1 with a 2.36 ERA in his last four minor league starts.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Andy Reid wrapped up his third organized team activities Friday since becoming the Chiefs head coach in 2013.
Each year has built on the previous, especially during the first year when players went through a familiarization process of what Reid and the coaching staff expected on offense, defense and special teams.
Reid, one of the winningest coaches in the NFL while in Philadelphia, has high standards. The past three weeks of OTAs left him with a positive vibe of the team’s progress despite the Midwest spring humidity.
“You want to see a third-year progression for the guys that have been here three years, and then what kind of shape they’re in,” Reid said. “This gives you a pretty good idea. They’re out here, the heat kind of jumped on us quickly and we were able practice in it I thought very well, and function very well. It looks like they’re a pretty well-conditioned team.”
The players were in shorts and helmets with no contact, of course, and that leaves room for tempered enthusiasm surrounding conditioning before the team reports to training camp in late July.
“We’ll see,” Reid said. “We got to get the pads on eventually in camp.”
Stability with quarterback Alex Smith, running back Jamaal Charles and tight end Travis Kelce, among others, has helped the Chiefs’ growth on offense. And having experienced players meant there wouldn’t be surprises during the OTA workouts.
“They understand the offense,” offensive coordinator Doug Pederson said. “That’s kind of what we’re seeing from our guys that have been around. There are a few guys like (wide receiver) Jeremy Maclin and (guard) Ben Grubbs and guys that we pulled in, and (guard) Paul Fanaika, they’re just kind of plugging in and picking up where we left off. This spring has been really good that way because, now again, everybody understands what we’re doing offensively. It allows us to play and practice faster.”
Maclin, who signed a five-year, $55 million free-agent contract in March, reunites not only with Reid, who previously coached Maclin in Philadelphia, but with wide receiver Jason Avant.
While Maclin and Avant provide two proven veterans in Reid’s version of the West Coast offense, there is still room even for a 10-year pro like Avant to get reaccustomed to what Reid expects.
“When I was in Philly, Andy wasn’t calling the plays,” Avant said. “Here he does a lot of that. It’s seamless because I know what he expects, but at the same time, you have to get used to what he thinks about routes.”
The Chiefs should have a smooth transition on defense with the core players returning from last season’s second-ranked pass defense (203.2 yards per game) and seventh-ranked defense in yards allowed (330.5 yards per game).
Coordinator Bob Sutton also welcomes the return of inside linebacker Derrick Johnson, who suffered a season-ending torn Achilles tendon in the 2014 season opener. Sutton also is identifying key backups.
“You’re working with your first group, but you’re also trying to develop your depth,” Sutton said. “You’re trying to make sure the young guys — from guys that will come out here on their own, undrafted guys — you want to make sure you evaluate everyone and you haven’t let anyone slip through the cracks.”
The Chiefs conclude the offseason program with a mandatory three-day minicamp next Tuesday-Thursday. While players are required to attend, Reid didn’t appear optimistic star outside linebacker Justin Houston — who has yet to sign his franchise tender and missed all 10 OTA workouts — would be on hand.
“He probably won’t be,” Reid said. “We just move on. I don’t really get caught up in all that stuff.”
NOTES: Strong safety Eric Berry, battling lymphoma, finished his treatments and met with his doctors two weeks ago, but Reid didn’t have an update. “It’s normally three weeks after that,” Reid said of Berry. “We’re getting to right about that time.” . Running back Jamaal Charles, who is holding a weekend football camp in Texas, was excused from Friday’s practice . . Running back Charcandrick West sustained a stinger during Friday’s practice. . Defensive tackle Dontari Poe (back), defensive lineman Vaughn Martin (ankle), and wide receiver Albert Wilson (hamstring) did not practice Friday.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Chris Young became the first Royals pitcher to drive in three runs in a game since 1972 and worked seven innings of five-hit ball Tuesday night, leading Kansas City to a 7-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
