Cole Ragans allowed just one hit in six innings and Freddy Fermin drove in three runs as the Kansas City Royals defeated the Detroit Tigers 8-3 on Wednesday, completing a series sweep.
Ragans (4-3) struck out a career-high 12 while holding the Tigers hitless until Riley Greene’s two-out single in the sixth.
“In the fourth inning I kind of had an idea what was going on,” Ragans said of the no-hit bid. “We kept having a good mix and going after guys.”
“I was looking at the pitch count, not the hits,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “In the sixth I started to do the math. When I saw it was no hits, then I’m starting to think how far can we take this.” Ragans fanned seven of the first ten batters.
“His stuff was great right out of the gate,” Quatraro said. “We know how good (his changeup) is. He’s getting swing-and-miss on the fastball. They had to honor the changeup, so he got them in between, ringing up a lot of strikeouts early.”
“He’s got a good heater with some run,” Greene said. “He was commanding with his heater and threw his slider off it.”
The Royals started the scoring with Fermin’s second-inning RBI double off the top of the left-centerfield wall. One out later, Garrett Hampson followed with an RBI double, making it 2-0.
“Freddy’s been swinging the bat really well,” Quatraro said. “He put a great swing on that pitch and Hampson had a great at-bat. I’m really happy for those guys.” Nelson Velázquez hit his fourth home run into the left-field fountains to lead off the fourth.
Kansas City extended their lead to 4-0 in the fifth with three consecutive singles, including Vinnie Pasquantino’s RBI hit that scored Maikel Garcia, who extended his hitting streak to 10 games.
Tarik Skubal (6-1) pitched five innings, giving up four runs on six hits with two walks and six strikeouts.
“They did a tremendous job of putting the ball in play when they needed to,” said Tigers manager A.J. Hinch. “They used the middle of the field a lot, they put the ball in play, they did some damage. They put a good attack plan on him.”
