Norris against Duffy tonight in K.C. (Jones ends perfect game bid in seventh)

Bud Norris (2-3, 3.98 ERA) takes the mound for the Orioles tonight. He is making his eighth start of the season and first since he was ejected in the eighth inning Monday night for hitting Detroit's Torii Hunter.

Norris said it was the first ejection of his career and he didn't feel it was justified. He hit Hunter following a two-run homer by Ian Kinsler that gave Detroit a 4-1 lead.

Norris has allowed three earned runs or fewer three times this year, has two quality starts and has gone six innings or longer four times. In three starts this month, he is 1-1 with a 3.38 ERA.

Lefty Danny Duffy (1-3, 1.96 ERA) gets the start for Kansas City. Duffy began the year making six relief appearances, but his last two outings have been starts.

He went a combined 10 innings against Detroit and Seattle in those games, allowing just four hits and two runs. He walked seven and struck out six. Duffy went 0-2, but with an ERA of 1.80 in the starts and a .129 batting average against.

On the year, lefty batters hit just .059 against him and right-handed hitters are batting .182.

The O's offense has scored just 15 runs the last six games and 39 in the last 13. The Orioles have scored three or fewer runs 11 times in the last 19 games.

Adam Jones takes a 11-game hitting streak into this game. He is hitting .348 (16-for-46) with four homers and eight RBIs.

J.J Hardy is trying to snap a 10-game RBI drought tonight. He has also now gone 55 games and 215 at-bats without hitting a homer.

Check back here for more updates during tonight's game.

Royals score first: Kansas City took a 1-0 lead after the first inning on Billy Butler's two-out RBI single. It scored Nori Aoki, whose speed helped get that run. Aoki led off the inning with an infield hit and then stole second base.

The Orioles went down 1-2-3 quickly in the top of the first on just six pitches against Duffy.

The Royals have already matched their run total of the first two games of this series when the Orioles won by 2-1 and 4-0 scores.

Duffy dealing: Duffy gave up just four hits in 10 innings over his last two starts and he has not allowed a baserunner through four innings tonight.

He has retired the Orioles 12 up and out so far. There haven't even been many hard-hit balls. Manny Machado was ahead 3-0 on the count in the fourth, but swung and popped out the next pitch. Duffy is at 52 pitches through four innings.

Duffy perfect through six: Duffy now has a perfect game going through six innings. He has retired all 18 batters to face him tonight on 74 pitches. Kansas City continues to lead 1-0.

There have been just two hard-hit outs tonight. Machado lined to right in the first inning and Caleb Joseph lined out to third base to end the top of the sixth.

Duffy has struck out just one batter. He entered with an ERA of 1.96 and an opponent average of .148. With each out without a hit he gets from here on out, this becomes a bigger and bigger story. He's had a quite a night so far at the O's expense.

Finally, a hit: Adam Jones came up with a clean single to center on a ground ball with two outs in the top of the seventh to end the perfect game bid. Duffy had retired the first 20 batters before Jones extended his hitting streak to 12 games. But he got Chris Davis to pop out, so he still has the 1-0 lead in the seventh.