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Greinke, Royals roll past Rockies

Jun 25, 2008 - 4:47 AM By Pat Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) - Zack Greinke continued his mastery of the National League, and the Kansas City Royals continued their recent offensive onslaught in a 7-3 victory against the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday.

The victory was the Royals' major league-leading 11th interleague triumph against three losses.

Despite scoring the fifth fewest runs in the majors, Kansas City has scored 26 runs and hit four home runs in its last three games.

Greinke (7-4) upped his season record against the National League to 3-0 in allowing three runs in six innings of work. He tied a season high with 10 strikeouts and did not walk a batter in winning his second straight start.

"I wasn't necessarily attacking the zone like I want to, but I threw a lot of quality pitches and got ahead, and got them to chase," Greinke said. "A lot of the strikeouts weren't on strikes."

"Overall, he was very effective," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "It's good to have guys missing bats, especially against a club that can slug like this club can. You know Zack has a lot of power."

Former Royal Jorge De La Rosa (2-4), making his first appearance against Kansas City since being traded to Colorado, took the loss for the Rockies. He allowed four runs on five hits in 4 2/3 innings while striking out five and walking three.

"My changeup wasn't climbing the ladder, the slider wasn't breaking pretty well, but I could only pitch with the fastball," De La Rosa said. "I made a lot of mistakes, and I paid for it."

"The first 10 hitters he faced he retired, he had four punchouts in the first 10 batters and another punchout after that," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "Maybe he got a little quick in the fourth inning. It seemed like he stopped throwing the slider. It was almost all fastball, changeup after that, It was pretty much one side of the plate. Until the third he was having some success pitching the fastball on the inside and the slider. It seemed like he got away from that."

Mike Aviles and Ross Gload collected two hits each for Kansas City while Alex Gordon recorded his ninth home run of the season. Aviles also scored twice.

David DeJesus extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a fifth-inning single.

Matt Holliday, Garrett Atkins, Ryan Spilborghs and Brad Hawpe each collected two hits for Colorado, which has lost four of its last five games.

Holliday extended his hitting streak to 11 games with his 10th home run of the season in the sixth inning.

"Systematically throughout the lineup, we're not clicking enough to sustain any momentum to get that big inning or any consecutive innings with runs and that's what we've got to keep working towards," Hurdle said of the Rockies' offensive woes of late.

The game was delayed 13 minutes in the bottom of the second inning after home plate umpire Brian O'Nora was struck and injured by a shattered bat. O'Nora suffered a small laceration of the forehead and was taken to a Kansas City hospital for further evaluation.