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Angels continue domination of slumping Royals

May 2, 2007 - 5:22 AM KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Bartolo Colon did not have his best stuff but be picked up a win anyway thanks to Vladimir Guerrero and Gary Matthews Jr.

Colon scuffled through five innings but was picked up by Guerrero and Matthews as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim posted a 7-5 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday in the second game of a four-game set.

Making his third start of the season, Colon (3-0) entered the game with a 1.93 ERA and has shown no ill effects from last season's shoulder injury. In winning his first two starts, the righthander had surrendered just three runs in 14 innings.

Colon was not as sharp against the Royals, allowing five runs - all earned - and nine hits in five innings. He walked one and struck out five and was the beneficiary of an early offensive outburst by the Angels.

"I consider that actually a bad outing for me," Colon said through an interpreter. "I'm thankful we won. Give all the credit to there hitters. Every time I made a pitch they should hit, they did. I didn't locate well."

Matthews, Reggie Willits and Orlando Cabrera started the game with three consecutive singles to load the bases. Guerrero emptied them with a shot to left-center field for the fifth grand slam of his career.

"You don't want to be in that position where there's nowhere to put him," said Royals manager Buddy Bell, who ordered Guerrero intentionally walked on his next two plate appearances with runners on and first base open.

Guerrero has homered in all three of Colon's starts.

"Vladimir joked with me that I need to pitch every night so he could get a home run every night," Colon said.

"I'm very aware I have three home runs when he pitches," Guerrero said through an interpreter.

Guerrero said he was not looking for any particular pitch with the count 3-1, but Zack Greinke hung a slider.

"If it was in the zone, I was going to put a good swing on it," Guerrero said.

The Royals' media relations department estimated Guerrero's home run at 435 feet, but Angels manager Mike Scioscia felt that was extremely conservative.

"What were they measuring, the height of it?" Scioscia said. "If that ball wasn't 550, I don't know what it was. That ball was crushed. Every time, every night he seems to do something. That's a big hit to get us out to some breathing room. As far as launching it, that ball was hit about as well as you could hit a ball. He squared it up, there's no doubt about that."

Cabrera added an RBI double in the second, scoring Matthews to stake Colon to a 5-0 lead.

Colon nearly gave it all back in the third as the Royals struck for four runs. Esteban German had a two-run single and Mark Teahan added a two-run homer to make it 5-4.

Greinke (1-3) took the loss. The 23-year-old righthander worked seven scoreless innings in his last start but got touched for six runs and 10 hits in five innings by the Angels.

"I hung a slider to Guerrero," Greinke said. "It was the worst thing I could have done. I've got to stop doing that with the bases loaded. I pitched a decent ballgame except for the pitch to Vlad. I left too many balls up and that cost me. I didn't pitch smart today.

"They were not hitting my fastball, but every time I used my off-speed pitches they hit it. I felt like I was going to have a really good outing because coming off the last start, when I didn't have good stuff, but I figured out a way to do it. Today I had good stuff and figured out a way not to do it."

Matthews was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and Willits had his first career three-hit game for the Angels, who got a strong performance from their bullpen.

"We need more than Vlad and we are," Scioscia said. "The game Gary had, Reggie gives us a big lift and (Erick) Aybar staying hot. We're getting production through the lineup and we have to. It just can't stop at Vlad."

Dustin Moseley pitched two perfect innings and Scot Shields allowed a hit in the eighth. Francisco Rodriguez struck out two in the ninth to record his 10th save, tops in the American League.

The streaking Angels have won 10 of their last 12 games, including the first two games of this series. They have now won 15 of the last 17 meetings between the teams. The Royals have lost seven of their last nine games and at 8-19 have the worst record in baseball.