KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Stuck in limbo between contending and conceding, the Kansas City Royals opted to stand pat as baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline passed Thursday, even as several other teams pulled off splashy moves.

The Tigers, who led the Royals by 4 1/2 games in the AL Central at the start of the day, landed arguably the biggest coup in left-hander David Price. The Mariners and Yankees, neck-and-neck with Kansas City in the wild-card hunt, also were involved in a series of trades.

Meanwhile, Royals general manager Dayton Moore said his perennially building club checked on potential trade targets but “at the end of the day, there weren’t any players we could get our hands on that would be upgrades over what we have.”

The Royals haven’t made the playoffs since 1985.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Salvador Perez triggered a go-ahead rally with a double in the sixth inning and made several spectacular plays behind the plate, helping the Kansas City Royals to a scrappy 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.

Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas had RBI doubles during the Royals’ charge, which wiped away a 1-0 deficit. Jason Frasor earned his first win since arriving in Kansas City by striking out Chris Colabello to leave the bases loaded in the sixth inning.

Scott Downs and Kelvin Herrera gave back a run in the seventh, but Herrera struck out Brian Dozier and Josh Willingham with runners on second and third to preserve a one-run lead.

Wade Davis worked a perfect eighth, and All-Star closer Greg Holland survived two wild pitches that sent Eduardo Nunez to third base by striking out Sam Fuld for his 28th save.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Eric Hosmer’s RBI double capped a five-run seventh inning and Kansas City avoided a four-game sweep on Sunday with a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

Four of the runs were charged to Justin Verlander (8-8), who started the inning with a two-hit shutout but loaded the bases on three straight singles.

The come-from-behind win still leaves the second-place Royals 6½ games behind the Tigers in the AL Central.

Since June 18 when K.C. beat the Tigers for their 10th straight win and went a season-best seven games over .500, the Royals have gone 9-14 while the Tigers went 17-6.

Verlander gave up six hits in 6 1/3 innings, struck out three and walked one.

Yordano Ventura (7-7) pitched 1 2/3 innings in his first career relief appearance and got the win.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Rick Porcello outdueled James Shields and the Detroit Tigers won their fifth in a row, beating the Kansas City Royals 5-1 Saturday night.

Porcello (12-5) raised his career record against Kansas City to 8-3 while yielding six hits and one run through seven innings.

Alex Avila drove in three runs, putting the Tigers in position to go for a four-game sweep on Sunday in what had been billed as an AL Central showdown.

The Royals have lost six of their last eight. They are 0-6 at home against Detroit this year.

Shields (9-5) went seven innings and allowed two runs.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Anibal Sanchez tossed seven stingy innings, Ian Kinsler and Miguel Cabrera drove in runs and the Detroit Tigers squeaked out a 2-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night.

Sanchez (6-3) scattered eight hits without a walk to help the AL Central-leading Tigers take their second straight from Kansas City. The second-place Royals dropped 6 1-2 games back in the division with two games left before the All-Star break.

Salvador Perez drove in the only run for the Royals, who squandered a solid start by Danny Duffy (5-9). He gave up both runs, only one earned, while losing for the fourth time in five starts.

Joe Nathan worked around a single and a walk in the ninth inning to earn his 19th save, and gave Detroit its fifth straight win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium this season.

Nathan got Nori Aoki to ground out on a full-count pitch to end the game.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Everybody in Detroit’s lineup had at least one hit and scored one run, the season-best offensive onslaught spurring the Tigers to a 16-4 rout of the Kansas City Royals in the opener of their four-game series Thursday night.

The Tigers established a season-high for runs just two days after their 14-5 blitzing of the Dodgers, and took a 5 1/2-game lead over the second-place Royals in the AL Central.

Drew Smyly (5-8) allowed four runs on eight hits and a walk in 6 2-3 innings for Detroit.

Jeremy Guthrie (5-8) gave up a career-worst eight earned runs on eight hits, three walks and two hit batters. He was mercifully pulled with no outs in the fifth, which means the Royals’ veteran has now allowed 16 earned runs in eight-plus innings covering his last two starts.