After a spring training void of any major injuries, the Royals were struck twice in the first five games by hip injuries that caused manager Trey Hillman to drastically alter his batting order.
Jose Guillen went on the disabled list with a Grade II partial tear of his right hip flexor tendon after playing only three games. Alex Gordon did not play Sunday and is listed as day-to-day with soreness in his right hip after coming out of the game Saturday after five innings. Brayan Pena went from a third-string catcher, who has hanging precariously to a roster spot before Guillen's injury, to the starting designated hitter Sunday and delivering a game-tying two-out eighth inning RBI-double in a come-from-behind 6-4 victory over the Yankees.
John Buck, who hit .224 and .222 the past two years to lose his four-year hold on the starting catching job to Miguel Olivo, went 3-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs against the Yankees.
"With the Gordon tweak, you have to rely on guys that aren't in the original plans to play every day," Hillman said. "Brayan Pena's kind of a surprising situation and a couple of days later he's starting. I've said from day one, we plan to utilize John Buck. Just because he came into the season as the backup catcher doesn't mean we weren't going to utilize him.
"Everybody goes through it. The Indians have put three guys on the disabled list in the last 10 days."
The Royals have avoided putting Gordon on the disabled list, with Hillman saying he is day-to-day. Without Guillen and Gordon in the lineup, the Royals lose a lot of their punch.
"Already with some of the tweaks we've incurred and the readjusting of what you thought was going to be somewhat of a set lineup, at least in the middle, it's really important," Hillman said to get production from unexpected sources.
ROYALS 6, YANKEES 4: Brayan Pena, Alberto Callaspo and John Buck stroked two-out run-producing hits with two outs in the eighth as the Royals rallied for a 6-4 victory to avoid a sweep to the Yankees. Starter Gil Meche held the Yankees to three hits and one run for six innings before giving up three runs and three hits in the seventh, putting the Royals down 4-3. Joakim Soria struck out the side in the ninth to log his third save.
