Royals’ Randa Stays in Groove

Joe Randa used Friday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates to reintroduce himself to the organization that left him unprotected in the 1997 expansion draft.

Randa drove in four runs with the first two-homer game of his career and set a Kansas City Royal record by getting hits in nine consecutive at-bats as the Royals beat the Pirates, 10-3.

Randa had a good year for the Pirates in 1997. Despite having one of the lowest payrolls, the Pirates were in the divisional race until the last week of the season.

Randa hoped to get a long-term contract offer from the Pirates. Instead, they left him exposed throughout the draft and the Arizona Diamondbacks took him.

“That’s behind me now,” he said. “I was definitely disappointed when it happened. I felt like I helped the club that year. I liked the guys and I wanted to stay.

“But for me to come back thinking about revenge? That’s definitely not the case. We’ve been struggling. We lost nine in a row and now we’ve won three in a row. My focus is to try and get us back to .500.”

Randa homered in his first two at-bats to tie the record with eight hits in as many at-bats over the last three games. The last Kansas City player to get eight consecutive hits was Hall of Famer George Brett from Aug. 25-27, 1980.

Randa walked in the sixth and set the record in the eighth when he doubled against reliever Jeff Wallace.

The major league record for consecutive hits is 12, held by Pinky Higgins of the 1938 Boston Red Sox and Walt Dropo of the 1952 Detroit Tigers.