HOUSTON _ The story came on a morning last May, but it could have been an afternoon in June or an evening in July. Royals manager Ned Yost was sitting inside Safeco Field in Seattle and talking about Jason Vargas, the veteran left-hander who was recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Three years earlier, in September of 2013, Vargas was pitching for the Los Angeles Angels, and Yost and Royals general manager Dayton Moore found themselves in front of a television as Vargas made a start against the Astros in Houston. The sight, as Yost recalls, was not pretty. The Astros were mashing. The game was out of reach.
"It was like 9-0 or 9-1," Yost said. "And Dayton was like: 'I want to try to go after this guy.' And I'm looking around, and it was like 9-1, right? And I've always like Vargy, but I'm like: 'Why?' "
Moore turned back toward Yost.
"Look at him," he said. "Watch him. The score is 9-1 ... he's competing his (butt) off out there."
The story may be slightly apocryphal, the details lost to memory. But the message resounds even one year later. The Royals signed Vargas that winter. He helped them to the World Series in 2014. He weathered a busted elbow in 2015 and survived a brutal year of rehab last season.
On Friday night he returned to Minute Maid Park, carrying the Royals to a 5-1 victory over the Astros, their first win of 2017.
Facing the prospect of an 0-4 start, Vargas handled the Astros for six innings, allowing one run and four hits while striking out six. The performance came on the heels of a brutal opening series in Minnesota, a three-game sweep that included just five runs of offense and three days of porous bullpen work. The Royals arrived at Minute Maid Park on Friday afternoon in need of a shutdown outing.
Vargas delivered with aplomb, neutralizing the Astros' offense with a tidy curveball and disappearing change-up. As he turned in scoreless innings, he induced seven swings and misses with his change-up. He walked just one, ending a streak of command issues from Kansas City's starting pitching.
And still, the Royals had to grind for victory No. 1. Reliever Peter Moylan calmed the waters after Vargas ran into trouble in the seventh. Alex Gordon broke the game open with a two-run double in the eighth. Center fielder Lorenzo Cain finished it off with a brilliant catch up against the wall in right-center field.
As he scaled the wall and landed on his feet, stealing extra bases from Houston's George Springer in the eighth, Cain flashed a wide smile. His teammates came to the dugout railing and raised their caps. For the first time in five days, the Royals could feel good about themselves, even as the offense waited seven innings to break out.
The Royals were facing Astros right-hander Mike Fiers, a 31-year-old who found himself at the back end of the Houston rotation after an injury to Collin McHugh. The Royals offense could only muster two runs before Fiers gave way to the Astros bullpen in the seventh.
Salvador Perez crushed a solo homer off the left-field pole in the top of the second for the Royals. Paulo Orlando generated another run on a bases-loaded catcher's interference call in the top of the sixth. For a while, the big inning appeared elusive. The Royals left the bases loaded in the sixth and the seventh. Cain and first baseman Eric Hosmer continued to look ever-so uncomfortable at the plate.
Hosmer finished 1 for 5, striking out in the first before hitting into inning-ending double plays in the third and seventh. In three games in Minnesota, he had finished 2 for 11. On Friday, he again struggled to elevate the baseball. The problem came to a head against reliever Jandel Gustave, a former Royals prospect, in the top of the seventh. With the bases loaded, Gustave pumped three fastballs that touched 97 mph. On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Hosmer hit a chopper to shortstop, ending the threat.
Yet by the end, the Royals produced offense to exhale. The bullpen came through with three scoreless innings. And Vargas was at the heart of victory No. 1.
