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Meche leads Royals past Indians

Sep 7, 2008 - 3:44 AM By Marc Bowman PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Gil Meche tied his season-high for strikeouts as the Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-1, on Saturday.

The righthander, who turns 30 on Monday, matched a season-best with 10 strikeouts and has 158 on the year, topping the career mark he reached in both 2006 and 2007. It was the fourth double-digit strikeout game of his career.

Meche (11-10) won for the first time since August 4, allowing one run, three hits and two walks in seven strong innings.

"(The Indians) have had my number for a long time," Meche said. "I don't know if it was having really good stuff, or just figuring out how to pitch to them. I knew I had to make an adjustment and I had good stuff, pitching inside and outside. Guys were sitting on my fastball and cutter, and I made some good pitches on change-ups to righthanders. I kept the hitters behind in the count."

David DeJesus paced the Royals' offense with three hits, including a two-out, two-run single in the second inning that gave Kansas City a 3-0 lead.

"I could see that Gil was on tonight, so we wanted to get up to that lead early," DeJesus said. "I could see that he was putting them away."

Esteban German's single started the Royals' scoring, plating Miguel Olivo. Mark Teahen - who celebrated his 27th birthday with a pair of hits - and German scored when DeJesus blooped a soft fly just over shortstop with two outs.

"I got just enough to get it out of the infield," DeJesus said. "But it fell in and it turned out to be just the runs we needed. We thought we were going to get more off him, but he did a good job once we got on base."

"You can't really worry about things like that," Indians starter Zach Jackson (0-2) said of DeJesus' soft hit. "That's baseball. The biggest thing I've learned since I've been up here is that all you can control is your next pitch. Maybe next time it'll be a line drive right at the second baseman."

After Ramon Ramirez delivered a scoreless eighth, Joakim Soria dispatched Cleveland in the ninth on eight pitches, earning his 35th save in 38 opportunities as the Royals snapped a four-game losing streak against the Indians.

"That's a good formula for us," Kansas City manager Trey Hillman said of getting seven innings from their starter before going to Ramirez and Soria. "Gil was outstanding. He was exceptional. I'm glad it didn't breathe any life into their offense, seeing him leave after seven."

The Royals have won four of five during their homestand, which ends Sunday, assuring themselves of their first homestand above .500 since winning six of nine late in June.

Jackson, a rookie lefthander, allowed three runs and nine hits, striking out two without issuing a walk. Cleveland had won 10 straight on the road coming into the game.

"It was almost a wake-up call," Jackson said of the three-run second inning. "I wouldn't say my stuff wasn't there, but I just re-grouped and was a little bit more aggressive after that. I was glad to be able to bounce back and keep us in the game."

"I thought Zach pitched well," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "He had that one inning where he gave up three runs, but he was able to settle down and I thought he did a great job of giving us a chance to win the ballgame today."

Shin-Soo Choo extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a pair of hits, including a leadoff triple in the fifth before scoring Cleveland's lone run on Ryan Garko's sacrifice fly.

"Choo looked like the only guy who really had decent passes at Meche tonight," Wedge said. "We were able to squeeze out one run with Garko's sacrifice fly, but (Meche) was real good. They pitched a great ballgame, all three of those guys."