By MATT PIKE
Over his last five starts, Noah Cameron has looked like a completely different pitcher than the start of the season, and on Sunday, the St. Joseph native threw his first career complete game shutting out the Los Angeles Angels 3-0 at Angel Stadium.
Cameron threw a career high 115 pitches over nine innings, pitching a perfect game until walking Oswald Peraza in the sixth inning, and a no hitter until the seventh inning when Vaughn Grissom hit a bloop single into left field, striking out eight batters for his seventh win of the season, improving to 7-8. It's the second complete game shutout for the Royals this season, the first time since 2014, after Stephen Kolek threw pitched a shutout against the Seattle Mariners on May 23rd.
The one hit shutout is the first by a Royal since August 30th, 2009, when Zack Greinke did so in his Cy Young winning season. Over his last five outings, four of those starts, Cameron has an ERA of 1.19. He's lowered his season ERA to 4.16, from 4.45 prior to the five dominant outings. In those five outings, Cameron has thrown seven innings or more four times, pitching a combined 37.2 innings giving up five runs on 13 hits with nine walks and 34 strikeouts.
Backing Cameron's dominant outing, Michael Massey hit a solo home run to start the scoring in the fourth inning. Massey was 3-for-4 on the day with an RBI. Bobby Witt Jr added a solo home run to left field, his first home run since July 9th in the fifth inning to extend the lead. In the seventh inning, John Rave reached on a fielding error, stole second base, and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Kyle Isbel before scoring the final run on a single by Carter Jensen.
Witt's lone hit as the home run while Jensen's was the RBI single. Kansas City also got hits from Salvador Perez and Kyle Isbel on the day. Nick Loftin reached base twice on walks.
Kansas City returns to Kauffman Stadium tomorrow to host the Athletics. Michael Wacha (5-8, 3.46 ERA, 117Ks) is set to start for the Royals against Mason Barnett (1-3, 6.16 ERA, 36Ks) for the Athletics. First pitch is at 6:40pm, pregame airs at 6pm on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
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