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Late rally lifts Rangers past Royals

Jun 11, 2008 - 4:46 AM By Pat Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- The Texas Rangers rallied from a four-run deficit in the late innings by taking advantage of some miscues to hand the Kansas City Royals a 6-5 defeat.

Texas, which won its third game in four tries this season against Kansas City, scored the winning run in the ninth inning on a passed ball by Royals catcher John Buck that allowed Ian Kinsler to cross the plate.

"I was just going," Kinsler said. "The ball got by him (Buck) and I was gone. There was really no thought process that goes into it. During the game you've got to think about what's behind the catcher, and here they've got a short backstop and the ball gets back to Buck pretty quick. In that situation, we've got a tie game, there's two outs, if he lets one go, I was gone."

"That was awesome baserunning right there," Texas manager Ron Washington said. "The ball got away, it came back, I saw it flying down the line, and the pitcher didn't react right away either, so that gave us an advantage right there."

The Rangers clawed back to tie the game in the eighth by scoring four unearned runs after Royals first baseman Mark Teahen's two-out fielding error prolonged the frame.

"The game is nine innings and we played nine innings tonight." Washington said. "In the eighth and the ninth innings, we put up enough runs to win."

With Texas trailing, 5-1, with two outs in the eighth, Michael Young drew a walk and Josh Hamilton reached when Teahen failed to catch a routine throw from shortstop Mike Aviles.

"It was low, but I just dropped it," Teahen said. "It sunk and it handcuffed me, but I dropped it. It gave them an extra out and they did everything they needed to do with it."

Righthander Brett Tomko came on for the Royals and allowed a two-run double to Milton Bradley and an RBI single by David Murphy to cut the lead to 5-4.

Yasuhiko Yabuta (1-1) then entered for Kansas City and allowed a single to Gerald Laird before Chris Shelton tied the game at 5-5 with an RBI single to right field.

Eddie Guardado (1-1) picked up the win for the Rangers by pitching a scoreless eighth inning and C.J. Wilson earned his 12th save of the season with a scoreless ninth.

Yabuta was the loser for Kansas City, allowing a double to Kinsler to lead off the ninth before Ramon Ramirez came on and unleashed a breaking ball that got past Buck to score the winning run.

"It was just a sinker that didn't really sink - it kind of cut," Buck said. "I know Ramirez does that every once in a while and I just missed it. Plain and simple."

Alex Gordon's sixth home run of the season, a shot to right-center field in the fifth inning, pushed the Royals' lead to 3-0.

Texas sliced the margin to 3-1 in the sixth inning on Hamilton's fielder's choice that scored Ramon Vazquez. It was Hamilton's major league-leading 70th RBI.

Kansas City made it 5-1 in the sixth on RBI singles by Aviles and Joey Gathright.

Jose Guillen, who pounded out nine hits in a four-game weekend series at New York, had two hits in the game and drove in the Royals' first run in the first inning. He is hitting .550 (11-for-20) with 11 RBI in his last five contests.

Laird recorded three hits for Texas and Young extended his hitting streak to 23 games with a single to right field in the sixth inning.