Brewers top Rangers, lose to Royals in split-squad games

Royals 6, Brewers 4

Christian Yelich and Travis Shaw homered in the third inning, but a Milwaukee Brewers split squad fell 6-4 to the Kansas City Royals on Saturday in Phoenix, Arizona.

The story of the day, however, was the reigning National League MVP.

Yelich hit a towering home run that cleared the batter’s eye in center field, part of a four-run third inning for Milwaukee.

Junior Guerra pitched the first inning for the Brewers, striking out two.

Jacob Barnes, Taylor Williams, Alex Claudio, Marcos Diplan, Daniel Brown and Cody Beckman also pitched for the Brewers.

Brewers 7, Rangers 3

Ben Gamel homered and Burch Smith pitched three scoreless innings to lead the Brewers’ other split squad to a 7-3 win over the Texas Rangers in Surprise, Arizona.

Gamel hit his third home run of spring training in the third, driving in Orlando Arcia to give Milwaukee a 3-0 lead.

Bubba Derby, Rodrigo Benoit and Tristan Archer also pitched for the Brewers.