Around the Kingdom: Raul Ibanez, Gordon, AJ Jenkins, Ben Heeney

The Royals couldn’t pull off a comeback win fora 3rd night in a row, falling to the Twins 11-5 in 10 innings Thursday night.

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The Twins had batting practice against Bruce Chen in the top of the 10th inning, scoring 6 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks. The 6-run 10th drove a stake into the never-say-die Royals who had wiped out Minnesota leads of 2-0, 4-2, and 5-4 to tie the game through 9.

I guess there are only so many miracles that you can pull off in one series.

The Chiefs lost their final pre-season game 34-14 in Green Bay. Kansas City looks anything but ready for the regular season. Obviously, Chiefs fans are all hoping that we are seeing yet another pre-season that bears little relation to the following regular season, but it’s always hard to entirely dismiss 12 consecutive quarters of awful play.

KU, K-State, and MU all open their football seasons on Saturday—with both K-State and MU ranked in the top 25 before the season. Here’s to a strong year of Mo-Kan college football.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS

Kings of Kauffman – The true value of Raul Ibanez:

"What Raul Ibanez has provided the Royals has gone beyond the stat sheet. His presence, and leadership, have helped to get the Royals to not only come back and surge into the lead in the Central, but may have also helped to get the Royals to believe in themselves as well. Sometimes, it just takes an outside influence to push a team in the right direction. Maybe, just maybe, that influence was Raul Ibanez."

Royals Review – Alex Gordon‘s defense:

"So how good is Gordon? Or, more appropriately, is he having the best defensive season of any American League outfielder this year? According to UZR, yes. According to DRS, he’s not. And therein lies the discrepancy between whether or not we should view him as an MVP candidate, or just a guy having a pretty good season."

Rany on the Royals – Kansas City is making memories this season:

"Tonight, Alex Gordon hit the second walk-off home run of his career. And with any luck, this one will be remembered by Royals fans years from now, maybe decades from now. The Royals had been shut out all night, and had scored two runs in their previous 28 innings. They were three outs away from squandering another great outing from Danny Duffy, from losing their third game in a row, from letting the Tigers move to within a half-game of first place"

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

Arrowhead Pride – A.J. Jenkins suffers concussion in Green Bay:

"His best play came on a 45-yard bomb from Tyler Bray down the right sideline. Jenkins had a step on the defender and dove to make the catch. I’m talking full extension dive. It was a great play and he somehow hung onto the ball. Jenkins has speed which is why plays like that need to happen more often.The worst part of his game when he exited with a concussion. He’ll need to go through the league’s concussion protocol. This happened on a Thursday and the Chiefs don’t play until the Sunday after next so they have time to work him back."

SPORTING KC

ReportingKC.com – Sporting KC vs. Houston Dynamo: Five things to watch:

"They’ve stocked the cupboards since we last saw them on June 6. They signed a pair of World Cup starters over the summer in USMNT’s LB DaMarcus Beasley (2.5 years) and Honduran DMF Luis Garrido (loan).But Houston is a team that’s facing the end of an era, with aging stars that have moved on (Brian Ching) or likely will soon (Corey Ashe, Brad Davis). Can Beasley and Garrido immediately help turn things around, or are they bandages on a bigger issue?"

KANSAS JAYHAWKS

KUSports.com – Senior LB Ben Heeney mentors freshman LB Kyron Watson:

"“Here’s an odd-couple relationship for you,” KU coach Charlie Weis said. “Heeney has taken him under his wing. Seriously. Even in recruiting, they kind of hit it off. I think that Kyron would like to end up being Heeney when Heeney is gone, and that’s a good thing.”"

There you have it KC fans—the news Around the Kingdom.

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