Royals Sign Saunders

Joe Saunders' days as a Texas Ranger flamed out in a hurry after he'd gone on a decent month-long stretch of starts. But after three straight bad starts, Saunders was shown the door last week after he allowed seven earned runs on nine hits in five innings of work against one of his former teams in Baltimore.

On Tuesday, Saunders agreed to a minor-league deal with the Kansas City Royals and was assigned to Triple-A.

The Rangers' contingency hasn't worked out too well for them, either, as Miles Mikolas took Saunders' place in the rotation and got shelled on Monday night by the last-place Astros. Now, they're starting some guy named Phil Irwin after Nick Martinez hit the disabled list, and that went equally bad on Tuesday night.

But those guys are much cheaper than keeping Saunders around, and there was no point in keeping the veteran in the mix at this point.

He finished his Rangers career, which lasted eight starts, with a 6.13 ERA and an 0-5 record.

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