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Garko's ninth-inning heroics help Indians edge Royals

Jul 14, 2007 - 5:18 AM CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- Ryan Garko helped the Cleveland Indians continue to make Jacobs Field a house of horrors for the Kansas City Royals.

Garko's RBI single in the ninth helped the Indians recover from rough top of the inning and post a 5-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Friday.

Cleveland, which extended its home winning streak to six games, has won 14 of 17 here against Kansas City. The Indians also improved their major league-best home record to 32-12.

"It's exciting," Garko said. "We picked up where we left off before the break. Hopefully, we can keep playing like this."

Cleveland (53-36) also remained just one-half game behind first-place Detroit (53-35) in the American League Central Division. The Tigers defeated the Seattle Mariners, 6-3, on Friday.

In the bottom of the ninth, Travis Hafner led off with a double off the right field wall against reliever Zack Greinke (4-5) to extend his hitting streak to 11 games. The hit came one day after the slugger signed a four-year, $57 million contract extension.

"Hafner gave us a chance to do it," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "You get someone on base, you get a chance. He did a little better than that by hitting that double."

"I made a bad pitch to Hafner," Greinke admitted. "He hit the ball hard all day long."

After Mike Rouse was sent in to run for Hafner, Jhonny Peralta was walked intentionally. Garko then hammered a single up the middle to plate Rouse with the winning run.

"It was a fastball," Garko said. "I was looking for a strike. I had never faced Greinke before, so I was looking for something out and over the plate."

It was Cleveland's eighth win in its last at-bat at home this season and its 27th come-from-behind victory overall, the most in the major leagues.

"It comes from our manager," Garko said. "He has that never-say-die attitude. He won't let us quit. It comes down to getting that big hit. What we have going now is great. There is somebody different every night. Nobody is scared to be up there with the game on the line."

The Royals had tied the contest in the top of the inning, when closer Joe Borowski (2-3) surrendered two singles to put runners on the corners with one out. Tony Pena Jr. then lifted a deep fly to left field, scoring pinch runner Jason Smith and forging a 4-4 tie.

"They got a couple of knocks off of Joe, but that's going to happen," Wedge said. "But our guys did a great job of coming back. It says a lot about these guys."

Cleveland starter Jake Westbrook was in line to pick up his first win in nearly three months. The righthander, who had not won since April 27 against Baltimore and missed most of the last two months with a strained left abdominal muscle, allowed three runs and five hits in six innings while striking out two and walking five.

"I felt like I didn't deserve to win," Westbrook said. "But the bottom line is, the team won the game."

The Royals had Westbrook in trouble early, loading the bases in the second and third innings, but only managed to score three runs. Two of those runs crossed the plate on forceouts.

"We had Jake in trouble, but we let him off the hook," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "When Jake gets into a rhythm, he can get real good."

Westbrook held Kansas City scoreless over his last three innings before turning it over to the bullpen.

Rafael Perez and Rafael Betancourt each tossed a scoreless inning before Borowski gave up the tying run in the ninth.

Victor Martinez gave the Indians their first lead of the game with an RBI single in the fifth as Cleveland erased a 3-1 deficit.

Perez remained winless since June 18 against St. Louis. The lefthander allowed four runs and seven hits in 4 2/3 innings.

The Royals took a 1-0 lead on Joey Gathright's RBI grounder in the second, but the Indians answered in the bottom half on Jason Michaels' RBI single.

The loss began a nine-game road trip for Kansas City, which also visits Boston and Detroit.