New York starter Ron Guidry dominated the Royals as New York trounced Kansas City, 7-0, on Thursday night at Yankee Stadium.

Guidry held the Royals to three singles and two walks as he pitched the first complete game of his major-league career. The young lefthander improved to 5-2 on the season and lowered his ERA to 2.53. He picked up seven strikeouts.

The Royals’ lone threat came in the third inning, which began with singles from Darrell Porter and Joe Zdeb. But, with the top of the order up, Guidry struck out Freddie Patek, got George Brett on a line drive to right, and struck out Hal McRae. Those were the first three of 17 straight outs recorded by Guidry, only broken by Zdeb’s single in the eighth inning.

By then the game had long since been decided. New York got two runs in the first off Royals starter Dennis Leonard. Mickey Rivers led off with a double and scored on a Willie Randolph triple. Leonard was then charged with a balk, scoring Randolph.

Leonard settled in and had his own stretch of outs, though, retiring 14 of the next 15 hitters after the Randolph triple, with the only runner reaching thanks to an error. But his string of success was broken with two outs in the fifth, when Bucky Dent singled and Rivers homered.

New York removed any doubt about the outcome in the seventh. With one out, Dent and Rivers each singled. Randolph walked to load the bases. Leonard got Thurman Munson on a groundout, although Dent scored on the play. But Chris Chambliss singled to drive in the other two runners, pushing the Yankees’ lead to 7-0. With Guidry rolling, that was plenty of offense to secure the win.

With the loss, the Royals fell to 28-31. They were in fifth place in the AL West, but had now fallen seven games back of first-place Minnesota.

Box score and play-by-play: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA197706160.shtml

Today’s birthdays: Wally Joyner (1962), Kevin Young (1969), Jonathan Broxton (1984), Tyler Zuber (1995)