As the baseball soared through the night, Eric Hosmer took a moment to admire his work. He held his follow-through pose for a split second. He shifted his eyes toward the night sky, tracking the orbit of his blast. Moments later, he broke into a trot, peering at his teammates in the first-base dugout.
All Wednesday night at Comerica Park, the Royals had subsisted on a diet of singles, peppering the Detroit pitching staff with hits and contact. In a 16-2 victory over the Tigers — a blowout that featured a bench-clearing skirmish in the ninth inning — Hosmer offered a moment of thunder, delivering the finishing combination in the top of the seventh.