Moustakas warming up after cold start

KANSAS CITY -- Third baseman Mike Moustakas is finally getting comfortable on offense.

After batting .195 in April and .171 in May, he improved to .274 in June. He has cooled off a bit, batting .250 in July through Saturday night, when he hit a go-ahead homer.

He has credited batting coaches George Brett and Pedro Grifol, who were hired on May 30, for his recent improvements.

"All the work with George and Pedro is starting to pay off," Moustakas said. "I feel a lot more comfortable at the plate and I feel like my swing is coming around to where it needs to be."

Manager Ned Yost said the way he's been practicing, the Royals expect the home runs to keep coming.

"We've been talking about Moose getting back on track, and you get back on track in batting practice and [he has in] the last week to 10 days," Yost said. "I told [owner David Glass] today that we're going to have to increase our ball budget with all the homers he's hitting in BP, and he couldn't do that a month ago. Now he's hitting them out with regularity. And you know if you can take them from BP to the game, you've got it."

Moustakas has seven home runs this season and five of them have come with two outs.