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Guillen sparks Royals in win over Rockies

Jun 24, 2008 - 4:36 AM By Pat Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- The Kansas City Royals continued their mastery of interleague play, riding the pitching of Brian Bannister and the hot hitting of Jose Guillen to an 8-4 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Monday.

Kansas City improved to 10-3 against National League opponents, becoming the first team in the majors to reach a double-digit win total in interleague play this season.

Bannister (7-6), who did not allow a hit until the fifth inning, limited the Rockies to just three hits in winning his second straight game despite walking a career-high six. He permitted three runs and struck out five while extending his unbeaten streak to six games.

"I like walks about as much as I like high gas prices; it's the worst thing in baseball for me as a pitcher because you're giving the guy a free pass - you're not even making him swing the bat," Bannister said. "I wasn't getting the hard pitches in to the righties (or) the back-door slider to the lefties."

"It's uncharacteristic for him to walk that many and miss with fastballs and secondary pitches like he did," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "Thankfully, he was able to get some ground balls and get some pitches even when he got behind in the count when he wasn't walking somebody, so they couldn't square them up."

Guillen had two extra-base hits on the night, including his 13th home run of the season in the third and a run-scoring double in the fifth. His two RBI gave him 60 for the season, good for second place in the American League behind Texas' Josh Hamilton, who has 76.

"He's been spectacular and driving runs in and that's what we needed him to do," Hillman said.

Mark Teahen's three-run home run to left-center field in the first gave the Royals an early 4-0 lead off Rockies starter Jeff Francis (3-7), extending the lefthander's first-inning troubles.

The Rockies' ace, Francis has surrendered 19 earned runs in the opening frame of his 16 starts.

"It's definitely me," said Francis of his early-inning issues. "It's not me chalking it up to bad luck. It's me not making good enough pitches."

Teahen finished the night with three hits for Kansas City, which has won nine of its last 12 games.

Ross Gload hit his first home run in the eighth inning to account for the game's final run. The homer was his first since September 3, 2007, at Texas.

Matt Holliday had two hits - a two-run home run in the fifth inning and a double in the eighth - to extend his hitting streak to 10 games for the Rockies, who were making making their first visit to Kauffman Stadium but lost for the third time in their last four games.

"(If) you get on, you've got to get in," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "They were able to do it and we weren't able to do it with the couple of opportunities we did have.

"Even in the fifth inning when we scored three, we battled through some adversity. It looked like that inning was going to get away from us. It was not quite enough offense in a critical time and we needed a better start from Jeff."

Francis allowed seven runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings, six of which went for extra bases.

"It's his fastball command more than anything else," Hurdle said. "We were not able to get the ball in on some people we needed to get it in on. Some lefthanders did some damage. He just missed locations."