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Indians-Royals Preview

Aug 26, 2009 - 5:07 AM By JEFF MEZYDLO STATS Senior Writer

Cleveland (55-69) at Kansas City (47-77), 2:10 p.m. EDT

It's been more than two months since the Kansas City Royals won a series at home. It's been even longer since they've done it against an AL opponent.

After a solid outing from their ace, the Royals are in position to accomplish both in the finale of their set with the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday.

Mike Jacobs drove in two runs and Zack Greinke struck out a team-record 15 in eight innings as Kansas City (48-77) snapped a five-game losing streak and evened the set with a 6-2 win over Cleveland on Tuesday.

The Royals are a major league-worst 26-40 at home and 8-25 at the newly renovated Kauffman Stadium since sweeping a three-game set with Cincinnati from June 12-14 - also their last series victory. Kansas City hasn't won a home set against an AL club since winning both in a two-game series with Seattle on May 6-7. The Royals took three of four against Toronto from April 27-30, for its last winning series of at least three games.

Miguel Olivo hit his career-high 17th homer Tuesday for the Royals, who are 6-8 against the Indians (55-70).

Though Jacobs is batting .239 in his first season with Kansas City, he's 4 for 7 with four RBIs in this series and batting .342 against the Indians in 2009.

After its staff allowed 10 runs in each of its previous two games prior to Tuesday's contest, Kansas City hopes Luke Hochevar (6-6, 5.60 ERA) can avoid a fourth straight loss.

The right-hander, who'll again be trying to set a career high for victories, is 0-3 for with a 7.45 ERA in five starts since beating Texas on July 25. Hochevar allowed three runs in seven innings of a 5-4, 10-inning loss to Minnesota on Friday.

He's 1-2 with a 5.14 ERA in his career against Cleveland.

Asdrubal Cabrera, who's 2 for 5 against Hochevar, had two hits with an RBI on Tuesday for the Indians, who where held to five hits while having their three-game winning streak snapped.

"There is no pattern to get any sort of rhythm at all," infielder Jamey Carroll said of the offensive effort by Cleveland, which had 14 hits during a 10-6 win in Monday's series opener.

Cabrera is batting .381 in his last five games and .415 with eight RBIs against Kansas City this season.

Rookie David Huff (7-7, 6.80) will try to avoid losing a second straight start while facing Kansas City for the first time.

The left-hander allowed five runs and walked four in 3 1-3 innings of a 9-4 loss to Seattle on Friday, after he won his previous two outings.

"He's still trying to figure out what he needs to do to be successful up here, but you can't be too complicated," Indians manager Eric Wedge said.