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Johnny Cueto throws shutout in home debut for Royals

By Michael Natelli

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It’s been multiple weeks since Johnny Cueto was sent to the Kansas City Royals. But it took until Monday night for the former All-Star to make his home debut for his new club. But Cueto’s first home performance was well worth waiting for.

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It’s not that Cueto had been bad in his first two starts for Kansas City. But on Monday he was truly great. In front of 36,600 fans, Cueto went the distance and pitched a four-hit shutout against the division rival Tigers. He struck out eight, walked none, and threw 86 of his 116 pitches for strikes. Right now, he’s everything that James Shields wasn’t a year ago for the Royals.

While Kansas City’s offense was good in its own right, scoring four runs on 12 hits, Cueto pitched like the ace he is. With Yordano Ventura‘s struggles with being consistent, Jason Vargas going down for the year and Jeremy Guthrie being average at best, it seemed the only thing keeping the Royals from lock for a World Series appearance was quality pitching. But with Edinson Volquez firing seven one-run innings in his last start and Cueto going the distance on Monday, they have a reason to believe their pitching is good enough.

If Ventura and Danny Duffy can start pitching the way they’re capable, it’d be hard to imagine a scenario where Kansas City wasn’t at least claiming its second consecutive American League pennant.

Next: Jon Gray Impresses In Second Start With Rockies

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