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Red Sox crown Royals, keep pace in AL East race

Aug 20, 2011 - 5:29 AM Kansas City, MO (Sports Network) - Jarrod Saltalamacchia belted a three-run homer and the Boston Red Sox banged out 13 hits Friday to beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-1.

The Red Sox have captured the first two games of this four-game series to rebound from a 1-4 stretch and remain a half-game behind the Yankees for first place in the AL East.

Andrew Miller (5-1) pitched 5 1/3 innings for the win, allowing one run on three hits, while Alfredo Aceves went the final 3 2/3 frames to earn his second save.

Red Sox prospect Ryan Lavarnway came home on Saltalamacchia's homer in the fifth after collecting his first major league hit, a single.

Jeff Francis (4-14) suffered his third straight loss and fell to 1-8 in his last 12 starts after giving up five runs on 11 hits in five innings.

The Royals had just four hits and dropped to 3-12 in their last 15 games. They fell to 1-4 on a seven-game homestand.

After Francis escaped bases-loaded jams in the first and third innings, the Royals took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third when Mike Moustakas led off with a double, went to third on a bunt and scored on Alex Gordon's sacrifice fly.

But the Red Sox built a 5-1 lead over the next two innings.

In the fourth, Carl Crawford doubled and trotted home on Darnell McDonald's one-out triple to the left-center field wall, and McDonald's scored on Jacoby Ellsbury's sac fly to make it 2-1.

Jed Lowrie and Lavarnway led off the fifth with back-to-back singles and came home when Saltalamacchia golfed a low changeup deep over the left-field wall for his 12th homer to make it 5-1.

"It wasn't a horrible pitch," said Royals manager Ned Yost. "It was kind of down and he went down and got it."

KC reliever Everett Teaford, who pitched three innings after Francis, hit Ellsbury to lead off the eighth, starting a two-run rally for Boston. Mike Aviles doubled and Adrian Gonzalez plated Ellsbury with a sac fly. Aviles scored on an error by Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar to make it 7-1.

Gonzalez was 3-for-4 after going hitless in his previous four games.

"In football, the season is only 16 games and every game matters. Here, you're going to go through spans where you don't feel good and spans where you feel great. You just try to stay the same," said Gonzalez.

Game Notes

The Red Sox improved to 38-24 on the road...Lavarnway, who was called up Thursday, was the designated hitter, the latest to fill in for the injured David Ortiz (bursitis)...Francis has just one win since June 10.