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Gaudin sharp as Athletics top Royals

May 9, 2007 - 5:19 AM KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Chad Gaudin seems to be getting the hang of this starting thing.

Gaudin turned in his longest outing of the season, and it was a good one, to lead the Oakland Athletics to a 6-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday in the opener of a three-game series.

A converted reliever, Gaudin (2-1) surrendered just three earned runs in 11 combined innings in his last two road starts. Oakland lost both of those games but gave Gaudin some support this time while handing Kansas City starter Jorge De La Rosa a rare loss.

"We've been struggling with the bats, but a lot of guys are hitting the ball hard right at people," Gaudin said. "It was good to see us get some luck and some runs."

"I was very happy with the offense," Athletics Manager Bob Geren said. "We scored almost every inning there for awhile."

Oakland scored in four consecutive innings starting with the second to hand De La Rosa (3-3) his first home loss of the season. The Royals have won just six games at home so far this season and De La Rosa has been the pitcher of record in half of them.

"His command was a little off tonight, with pretty much all of his pitchers," Royals catcher Jason LaRue said. "He was up in the zone a little more than in his other starts."

"He didn't have the kind of command he had before," Royals Manager Buddy Bell said. "His stuff wasn't all that bad, but his command wasn't that good and he threw up in the zone more than in the past."

Jack Cust drove in Nick Swisher with a groundout in the second to make it 1-0. Swisher extended Oakland's advantage to 3-0 in the third, plating Mark Ellis and Eric Chavez with a single to right.

"That base hit to right was clutch for us," Gaudin said of Swisher's single. "They did a good job of getting key hits tonight."

"We hit the ball well," Chavez said. "It was encouraging, definitely. We were going pretty bad. We thought we had a better offense than we've shown. Hopefully we are starting to hit the ball a little and get things rolling."

That was more than enough run support for Gaudin, who allowed one run and five hits with eight strikeouts and one walk. It was the longest outing of the season for Gaudin, who lasted 7 1/3 innings in a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on April 17.

"I believe so," Gaudin said when asked if this was his best outing ever. "I didn't have the best stuff, but it was good enough for today. I had good life on my fastball and my slider was pretty good. Not so good with the changeup, but I mixed in a back-door slider."

Gaudin made 55 appearances for the A's last season, all in relief. He handled just about everyone in the Royals' lineup except Mark Teahen, who was 3-for-4 and drove in Kansas City's only run with a triple in the third that made it 3-1.

"He pitched tremendous," Geren said. "We got ahead and stayed ahead, and Chad got us there. He could have gone all the way. Jay (Witasick) needed the work so we got him an inning."

"He threw strikes and mixed his pitches well," Royals centerfielder David DeJesus said. "His four-seamer was moving and his slider had late break."

Oakland added a run in the fourth and tacked on two more in the fifth on an RBI double by Bobby Crosby and sacrifice fly by Jason Kendall.

"Our pitchers have carried us all season," Athletics first baseman Dan Johnson said. "Scoring six runs for our pitchers right now is big. We got timely hits, got into good hitters' counts and took advantage."

De La Rosa labored in this one, allowing six runs and 10 hits in 4 1/3 innings. He had one strikeout, issued two walks and uncorked a wild pitch. He entered the game with the best home record of any pitcher in the major leagues, compiling a 3-0 mark with a 0.82 ERA, which ballooned to 2.39 after Tuesday's outing.

Chavez went 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and Crosby also had two doubles for Oakland, which has won 28 of its last 34 contests here since 2000.