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Bannister sharp as Royals edge Tigers

Jul 22, 2007 - 10:02 PM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Brian Bannister tossed seven strong innings and Esteban German homered as the Kansas City Royals posted a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park on Sunday afternoon.

Mark Grudzielanek had three hits for the Royals, who have won four of their last five games.

In his first full season in the major leagues, the 26-year-old Bannister (6-6) bounced back against the Tigers, who reached him for four runs and eight hits in 4 2/3 innings in a 6-3 loss on May 4.

On Sunday, Bannister yielded one run and four hits, striking out three and walking one. David Riske hurled the eighth and Octavio Dotel tossed the ninth to finish out the game.

"I threw every pitch I had against these guys today," Bannister said. "I wanted to build from my last two starts and keep runners off the bases. I was aggressive and threw strikes to stay out of the big inning.

"My goal for today was for us to win the series."

Detroit left fielder Craig Monroe opened the scoring with a solo homer in the bottom of the third.

"He's (Monroe) one of our guys," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We know that. Sometimes you get him away from it, and Marcus (Thames) had a hot hand. Give him time and now he's come back and swung the bat well the last couple of nights."

The Royals answered with two runs in the fourth. Billy Butler led off with a triple off Tigers starter Nate Robertson (6-7), and Reggie Sanders knocked him in with an infield single.

"It's a chess match," Robertson said. "You go up there and you're facing hitters, you have a game plan. They may be looking for something, you might outthink yourself too much.

"It's not that I didn't attack them. I still threw a pitch that I believed was the best to get an out with. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't."

David DeJesus then reached on Detroit third baseman Brandon Inge's throwing error, sending Sanders to third and DeJesus to second. After Emil Brown lined out, Tony Pena Jr. lofted a sacrifice fly to score Sanders to make it 2-1.

"This win was big for us," DeJesus said. "We beat a great team that threw tough pitchers at us. It's a positive sign that we need to keep building on."

Emil Brown added a sacrifice fly of his own in the sixth to make it 3-1.

Kansas City opened the game up a bit in the seventh thanks to German, who led off with a solo blast. Grudzielanek then doubled and Mark Teahen singled - sending Grudzielanek to third - to knock out Robertson, who allowed five runs - four earned - and 11 hits in six innings.

"Grudzielanek is as hot as you can get," Royals manager Buddy Bell said.

Grudzielanek then was thrown out at home on Butler's ground ball and Sanders struck out swinging before DeJesus ripped an RBI single to give the Royals a four-run advantage.

Curtis Granderson had two hits and Magglio Ordonez added an RBI double for Detroit (58-38), which entered the day with a two-game lead over Cleveland in the American League Central.

"I think we hit a couple balls hard," Granderson said. "So a couple hard-hit balls that didn't go our way, a couple hard-hit balls that definitely went their way. Sure enough, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, we end up playing catch-up the whole game."