• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

De La Rosa outduels Ortiz as Royals top Twins

Apr 22, 2007 - 10:31 PM KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Ramon Ortiz continues to pitch well for the Minnesota Twins. But Kansas City Royals starter Jorge De La Rosa was just a bit better.

De La Rosa pitched a career-high eight innings to outduel Ortiz as the Royals took two of three from the Twins with a 3-1 victory in the series finale.

Ross Gload blasted a two-run homer and Mike Sweeney doubled in an insurance run for last-place Kansas City (6-12), which won its first series of the season.

"Today was a big win for us," Sweeney said. "We'd been playing lousy for two weeks, but we've played better this week. It was a great team effort with good pitching."

"It was a pitch down the middle, a good pitch to hit," Gload said of the home run. "We're looking to get good pitches to hit and to put good swings on them. I took one good swing today, and it got us two runs."

Ortiz (3-1) has looked like a Cy Young Award candidate in his four starts this season. The righthander has pitched at least seven innings in every start and has not allowed more than three runs in a game.

"I threw the ball well, but the other guy threw it better," Ortiz said. "That's just baseball. Pitching like that every time, we'll win more than we lose."

"Ramon made just one mistake, the pitch to Gload," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "It was a well-pitched game, a good ballgame. We were outpitched today, and we pitched good."

But Ortiz was overshadowed by De La Rosa (2-1), who yielded just one unearned run and five hits while striking out four and walking one.

However, it did not look good for the 27-year-old lefthander in the opening frame. After loading the bases with one out, De La Rosa struck out reigning AL MVP Justin Morneau and got Torii Hunter to fly out to escape the jam.

"That was the biggest out of the game," Royals catcher John Buck said of the strikeout. "It's funny, but sometimes the biggest out is in the first inning, and you don't know it at the time, but that was it. That could have changed the whole outcome of the game."

"It was a curveball," De La Rosa said of the strikeout pitch. I was trying to throw strikes but not leave anything up." De La Rosa retired 16 in a row before allowing a one-out single to Joe Mauer in the sixth.

"It was definitely the best game I've thrown," De La Rosa said. "I had good command of all my pitches. I was throwing a lot of strikes. It was the same as my first start."

"He was getting ahead with his fastball," Buck said. "Once he established that he was able to throw the changeup and when they kind of figured that out then we'd go with the curveball. He had good command today." Rookie Joakim Soria pitched around a one-out bunt single by Hunter in the ninth to pick up his second save.

"We wanted to stay out of the bullpen," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "And Jorge helped us do that. After the first inning, he was as good as anybody we've seen this year, for us or against us."

Ortiz yielded three runs and seven hits in seven innings. He struck out four and did not walk a batter.

"My changeup was a good pitch," Ortiz said. "But my best pitch was a fastball inside. It had a lot of movement."

"He had good stuff," Sweeney said. "We looked at the tape and every pitch we got a hit on was on the corners and down."

Despite losing two of three to Kansas City, the Twins completed a 4-2 road trip. "We've got to look at it that way," Hunter said. "And we're not even playing our best right now."

"When you go on the road you want to have a winning trip," Twins rightfielder Michael Cuddyer said. "We were able to do that, going 4-2. We've got to be positive like that."