Royals’ 4 homers earn 4th straight series win

DETROIT — The Royals won a battle of solo home runs, including Raul Mondesi’s first Major League homer off Justin Verlander, in a 6-1 win over the Tigers on Tuesday night at Comerica Park.

Kansas City, which can sweep the series on Wednesday, secured its fourth straight series win and is 7 1/2 games back in the American League Wild Card standings. Detroit fell six games back of the first-place Indians in the AL Central and 3 1/2 out in the WC race.

“We have as good a possibility of going on a run to finish this thing off as anybody does,” Royals starter Danny Duffy said. “I believe that we can do it. All of us do. There’s not a single person in here that doesn’t think we could go get it. We’re looking forward to the challenge.”

What had been billed as a pitching duel between Verlander and Danny Duffy was a low-hit affair as expected, but four of those hits cleared the outfield fences. Three of the Royals’ homers were the first three hits off Verlander (12-7), who paid for hanging sliders to Mondesi in the third and Alex Gordon in the fifth before Eric Hosmer connected on an 0-2 fastball in the seventh. Two unearned runs in the eighth put Kansas City in command before Kendrys Morales greeted Mark Lowe with a home run leading off the ninth.

“You think it’s going to be a real pitchers’ duel and it really was,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Verlander gave up three or four hits, and it just so happens that we were lucky enough that three were home runs. It’s kind of strange to our game. We’re more about putting hits together and manufacturing runs.”

Jarrod Saltalamacchia added to the homer parade with a drive in the fifth, but Detroit managed just two other hits, both singles, off Duffy (10-1) in 7 2/3 innings. Duffy won for the fourth consecutive start, improving to 9-0 in 13 outings …

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