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Royals blast Weaver; Meche wins in return to Seattle

Apr 29, 2007 - 6:44 AM SEATTLE (Ticker) -- Gil Meche's teammates had his back in his return to Seattle.

The Kansas City Royals ripped Jeff Weaver for six runs in less than an inning and Meche did enough to beat his former team as the Kansas City Royals posted an 8-3 victory the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.

Meche (2-1), who signed a five-year, $55 million contract with the Royals in the offseason after spending six years with the Mariners, had baserunners on in every inning but withstood it because his teammates blasted Weaver.

Despite being hit hard this time around, allowing three unearned runs and 10 hits and six innings, Meche has yielded just seven earned runs in his last 20 1/3 innings.

"I wasn't real sharp today, they got a lot of balls to hit," Meche said. "I was just fortunate enough to stay out of some big innings and make some pitches when I needed to. The six runs (in the first inning) was definitely key in this game today."

His counter part, Weaver, whom Seattle signed to a one-year, $8.5 million contract, did not survive the first inning, allowing six runs and seven hits in one-third of an inning. It was the shortest outing of his career.

Seattle manager Mike Hargrove said Weaver's problem was location.

"That's all it was, his velocity was good," Hargrove said. It was location with everything. He was up with everything and they hit them."

Weaver (0-4, 18.26 ERA) allowed the first five runners to reach base before recording the first out. After singles by David DeJesus and Mark Grudzielanek to lead off the game, Mark Teahan hit an RBI single to left. Mike Sweeney then singled and Ross Gload launched a two-run double to right for a 3-0 lead.

After Emil Brown's RBI groundout, the 30-year-old Weaver allowed a single and a walk before Tony Pena Jr. hit a two-run single for a 6-0 lead, sending Weaver to the showers.

"It looked like Jeff was a little wild in the strike zone and we took advantage of it," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "We hit with some runners on, which was good to see. We did a good job offensively."

The Seattle starter couldn't put his finger on exactly what the problem was following the shortest outing of his career.

"It's tough to place your finger on it," Weaver said. "You feel like you have something figured out and then you have another game like this where it seemed like whatever you threw up there, they were swinging and putting a good swing on it."

Jose Vidro extended his hitting streak to 12 games for the Mariners, who saw their season-high four-game winning streak go by the wayside. Part of the reason was that they were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.

Ichiro Suzuki had two RBI for the Mariners, who won the first game of the series, 7-4, on Friday night.

Grudzielanek added an RBI double in the third for the Royals, who snapped a two-game losing streak.

Brandon Duckworth worked three scoreless innings to record his first career save.