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Royals' bullpen holds down Indians

Aug 25, 2007 - 5:13 AM By Patrick Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) - The Kansas City Royals got a stellar performance out of their bullpen and some timely hitting en route to a 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Friday night.

Emil Brown and Esteban German each drove in a run for Royals, who posted their ninth win in their last 13 games against the Indians at Kauffman Stadium.

Zack Greinke, making his first start since May 6, hurled three innings and allowed just one hit while walking one and striking out two. The righthander left after tossing just 48 pitches in his first extended outing of the campaign.

"When you beat their big guy (Indians starter C.C. Sabathia), who had great stuff, and that might have been the best stuff we've seen all year," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "When you're able to come out with a 2-1 win, it makes it even that much more special. We needed to pitch the way we did tonight to win."

John Bale (1-1) pitched three solid innings and allowed one hit, striking out a season-high five to give him two consecutive solid relief appearances. Against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday, the lefthander allowed one hit while striking out two in three frames.

"I just tried to stay aggressive, change it up inside, move the ball around, change speeds," Bale said. "My changeup was effective tonight. That's something that I haven't had in previous games. I finally found it."

"John Bale saved our butt," Bell said. "The way he pitched and got through some of their lefthanded hitters was really outstanding."

Four more relievers hurled the final three innings, including closer Joakim Soria, who stranded the go-ahead run on first base in the ninth to pick up his 14th save.

Sabathia (14-7) was denied his 15th victory of the season, despite allowing two runs and five hits while walking one and striking out five in eight innings.

The loss continued a trend for Sabathia, who is 1-3 in his last seven starts. His only win in that stretch was a 5-2 victory at Minnesota on August 3.

"My command wasn't there like normal," Sabathia said. "I was just trying to battle and throw strikes. I'm not frustrated. That's just baseball."

"That was another great effort that we didn't take advantage of," Cleveland manager Eric Wedge said. "He was still strong. He earned the right to stay out there."

Kansas City took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning on Brown's RBI groundout, scoring Mark Grudzielanek.

The Royals played small ball to extend their lead to 2-0 in the fifth. Tony Pena Jr. was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, moved to second on a passed ball by Cleveland catcher Victor Martinez and was sacrificed to third by Joey Gathright.

He then scored on German's sacrifice fly.

"We did a good job of situational hitting, moving the runners over, doing the things we need to do to win," Royals catcher John Buck said. "It even gets more emphasis when you face a pitcher like that. If we don't have situational hitting tonight, we don't win."

Cleveland broke through in the seventh on Ryan Garko's bloop single to make it 2-1.

"We're still seeing some issues with our offense," Wedge said. "Consistency, or lack of. We had pitches to hit."

Despite the loss, the Indians (70-57) continued to hold a 2 1/2-game lead on the Detroit Tigers (68-59) for first place in the American League Central. The Tigers host the New York Yankees in the opener of a four-game set later Friday night.