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Perez bounces back against Cardinals

Jun 19, 2007 - 5:23 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- In a reversal of last Wednesday's game, Odalis Perez earned some revenge against the St. Louis Cardinals and Adam Wainwright.

Perez pitched six solid innings and John Buck homered to lead the Kansas City Royals to a 5-3 victory over Wainwright and the Cardinals in the opener of a three-game series on Monday.

Perez was tagged for seven runs and 10 hits over just three innings in a 7-3 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday, while Wainwright yielded one hit over eight scoreless innings. On Monday, it was Perez (4-7) who got the best of Wainwright.

"With (Perez) it's that he mixes it up and uses both sides of the plate," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "He was using the outer-half much more than he did the other night mainly because he had better command. He was changing speeds, that's his forte, that and being on the edges more than in the middle."

The 30-year-old Perez yielded three runs and six hits with three walks and escaped a major mess in the fifth. After intentionally walking Albert Pujols, Perez induced Juan Encarnacion into an inning-ending double play to escape the bases-loaded situation.

"Pujols is the best guy in the lineup," said Perez, who threw 53 of 91 pitches for strikes. "It was good to put him on base and pitch to Encarnacion, that was the big (play)."

Perez snapped a four-game losing streak against the Cardinals, improving to 3-4 in his career versus St. Louis with an 8.66 ERA.

"First time we saw (Perez) he threw a lot of balls in the middle of the plate," Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen said. "Tonight he changed speeds, move the ball around a little bit, and threw a better game."

David Riske and Joakim Soria each pitched a scoreless inning before Octavio Dotel entered in the ninth to pick up his sixth save of the season.

"When we can use the bullpen like we did tonight we're in pretty good shape," Bell said. "Our bullpen has been good when you can use them like that."

Buck gave the Royals a 2-1 lead with his career-high 13th home run off Wainwright to lead off the second. Later in the inning, David DeJesus singled in Ryan Shealy to take a 3-1 advantage.

Kansas City extended its lead in the fourth inning with an RBI groundout by Esteban German and Mark Teahen's shallow single which plated Perez to open up a 5-1 advantage.