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Rogers, Tigers stymie Royals

Jul 23, 2008 - 7:19 AM By Marc Bowman PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Placido Polanco's tie-breaking homer supported Kenny Rogers' solid effort as the Detroit Tigers defeated the Kansas City Royals, 7-1, on Tuesday night.

Polanco's solo shot in the third inning cleared the left field wall by inches, giving the Tigers a 2-1 lead. He also doubled and scored as Detroit plated three runs in the fifth.

Rogers (8-6) collected the 218th win of his career, tying Earl Whitehall for 18th place on the all-time list for victories by a lefthander.

"They didn't bloop a whole lot of balls in like they did last time," Rogers said, referring to the 11 hits he surrendered in four innings against the Royals on May 15. "Give them credit, they got hits, but a lot of them were the softer variety. I had a lot of stuff working tonight."

"I thought he was really aggressive," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "He made some quality pitches and he got some balls hit right back to him."

The 43-year-old Rogers allowed a run in the first inning before retiring 17 of the last 20 batters he faced. He yielded four hits, walked one and struck out four in six innings, leaving after a 2-hour, 20-minute rain delay in the seventh.

"I thought we were going to get one more (inning) out of him, maybe two more, before the rain," Leyland said.

"He didn't even let me negotiate about that," Rogers joked. "I thought we'd start again after about an hour and 45 minutes. I would have liked for it to have been rained out right there. I was hoping for a complete game. Really though, I would have liked to have pitched a couple more innings except for the rain."

The Tigers wasted no time getting on the scoreboard. The first of Magglio Ordonez's three singles brought home Carlos Guillen, who had doubled with two outs in the first inning.

It marked the sixth straight plate appearance in which Guillen had scored a run over the first two games of the series. He also reached safely in eight straight at-bats.

The Royals quickly forged a 1-1 tie as Mark Grudzielanek's single in the bottom half plated Mike Aviles, who had doubled to extend his hitting streak to a career-best 12 games.

Detroit regained the lead, 2-1, on Polanco's two-out homer in the third inning, his fourth of the year. Polanco, who extended his hitting streak to seven games, is batting .340 over his last 71 contests.

"Today, we were able to put up a couple of good at-bats," Polanco said. "We still have to be aggressive. When a pitcher gets behind in the count, he has to throw strikes, so a hitter can take advantage."

The Tigers took control with three runs in the fifth against reliever Joel Peralta, who was recalled from Class AAA Omaha shortly before Tuesday's game.

Miguel Cabrera brought in one run with a single and Matt Joyce plated another on a bases-loaded walk before Gary Sheffield made it 5-1 with a sacrifice fly as Detroit continued their second-half offensive onslaught.

"This is a good lineup," Polanco said. "It will be interesting to see what we can do in the second half. We can hit."

The Tigers have scored 51 runs in six games since the All-Star break, including Monday's 19-4 beating of the Royals.

"We haven't pitched well against this club," Kansas City manager Trey Hillman said. "They came in hot. Eight of their nine hitters are really hot. The bottom line is, we just have to pitch better."

Royals starter Kyle Davies (3-2) had control problems from the beginning, going to at least a two-ball count on the first 12 batters he faced. The 24-year-old righthander remained winless in his last six starts after allowing two runs, five hits and one walk while striking out three in four innings.

"On a lot of pitches, the location wasn't very good, especially with the fastball," Davies said. "The No. 1 thing as a pitcher is locating. It's not velocity. I had a lot of three-ball counts and they hit a lot of foul balls. It was not good location tonight. I didn't make a lot of good pitches."

Grudzielanek, who leads the American League in hitting against lefthanders, had three of Kansas City's four hits against Rogers.

"I was really good, except for (against) Mark," Rogers said. "I don't think I threw bad pitches. He just went down and got them. I threw a changeup on his shoetops (in the sixth inning) and he reached out and hit a double down the line. I was just laughing. I'm going to throw him a knuckleball next time. He's seen everything else."