CLEVELAND, OH--- Behind a stellar start from Aaron Civale, the Guardians shut out the Royals 3-0 Friday night, moving back to .500 on the season. Civale pitched a very strong 7 innings giving up only 2 hits while striking out 9, he was backed up by Trevor Stephan and Emmanuel Clase who both went an inning a piece, not giving up a hit or run to close out the game. Combined between those 3 towards the last few innings, they would retire 12 Kansas City batters in a row until Clase would walk a batter, no harm done as it resulted in a game ending double play.
Civale was hot right from the start, being perfect through his first 3 innings on only 33 pitches, and the bats backed him up. Josh Naylor would get Civale a 1-0 lead to work with early on, knocking in Amed Rosario. Naylor has been red hot in his past 30 games, coming into Friday night, Naylor has sported a .390 average with 29 RBI. Josh Bell then gave Civale 2 more insurance runs with a 2 run home run in the 4th.
The Guardians will play an afternoon game Saturday, a 4:10 start where we will see a battle of 2 young pitchers in Gavin Williams for Cleveland, and Brady Singer for Kansas City. You can hear the game on WTAM 1100 AM, 106.9 FM, the free iHeartRadio app, and HERE