Off the slide: Royals end nine-game skid with 6-1 victory over White Sox

Maybe there’s something to the calendar change for the Royals.

After ending April on a nine-game skid, the Royals opened May with a 6-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Monday at Kauffman Stadium.

Jorge Bonifacio and Eric Hosmer crushed two-run homers, and in a sign that the breaks had finally fallen the Royals’ way, Salvador Perez banged a two-run single off the third-base bag.

“You’re thinking, it’s about time we catch a break the way things have been going,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.

The new month was only one indicator the Royals’ fortunes could change. The other was Jason Vargas on the mound.

Twice earlier this season, Vargas pitched gems to end three-game losing streaks. The stakes were higher for Monday’s assignment as more losses piled up.

“These first few weeks we haven’t shown as consistently as we’d like,” Vargas said.” The fact of the matter is the talent in this room is no different than when we won the World Series in ’15 and when we went in ’14. It’s just a matter of putting good games together, getting on a roll and feeding off each other.”

Vargas led the way Monday. Over six innings, he allowed five hits. His control was a bit off. Three walks was one more than he had surrendered in his previous four starts covering 25  1/3 innings.

He entered the game with an American League-best 0.77 walks per nine innings, and a leadoff free pass in the fourth led to the game’s first run.

But Vargas, who was chosen the Royals’ pitcher of the month earlier in the day, used his change-up to maneuver out of further trouble, and he improved to 4-1 while carrying a 1.42 ERA.

“Obviously (command) wasn’t as sharp, but we were able to get ourselves into at-bats where we able to locate and get the pitches we wanted and get out of the innings when we needed to,” Vargas said.

Peter Moylan, Joakim Soria and Scott Alexander pitched clean seventh, eighth and ninth innings, as the Royals improved to 8-16 and defeated a Central Division opponent for the first time in nine attempts this season.

The Royals gave Vargas the lead in the fourth. With two outs, Alex Gordon hustled out an opposite-field double, his fourth double of the season.

Up stepped Bonifacio, who was called up on April 21 to replace Paulo Orlando in right field and provide some pop.

Jorge Bonifacio homers, settles into Royals' lineup

In his second big-league game, Bonifacio hit his first home run. He didn’t have another until Monday, when he crushed Dylan Covey’s slider 432 feet onto the steps next to the Royals Hall of Fame in left field.

The Royals added to the advantage in the next inning by loading the bases with one out on singles by Alcides Escobar and Mike Moustakas and a walk to Lorenzo Cain. After Hosmer struck out, Perez chopped a grounder that caught third base and skidded into left field, scoring two runs.

“You know how many times we’ve hit the ball hard right at somebody?” Perez said. “This was pretty good for us. We needed it.”

Hosmer made up for his whiff by clubbing an opposite-field home run to left-center in the seventh after Christian Colon’s single. Few were happier to see April end than Hosmer, who entered the game hitting .225 with three extra-base hits and six RBIs.

“I’ve always said when I’m going good that’s the way I’m going,” Hosmer said. “Hopefully, I can build off that.”

The Royals lost a scoring chance early after Escobar opened the third inning with a double and moved to third base on Colon’s sacrifice bunt. The inning ended when Moustakas grounded to third against a drawn-in infield, and Cain grounded out to second.

It looked like April, with all its poor hitting and missed opportunities, had seeped into May. That changed one inning later with Bonifacio’s blast.

New month, new Royals? 'The mind is a mysterious thing,' says Ned Yost

Royals 6, White Sox 1

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Off the slide: Royals end nine-game skid with 6-1 victory over White Sox."