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Bannister, Royals snap Rangers' winning streak

Jul 28, 2007 - 6:11 AM KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Brian Bannister helped the Kansas City Royals end the Texas Rangers' season-long, four-game winning streak.

Bannister pitched seven scoreless innings and Billy Butler blasted a three-run homer to lift the Royals to a 6-1 victory over the Rangers on Friday in the opener of a three-game series.

Bannister (7-6) scattered four hits with two walks and six strikeouts to earn his second consecutive win.

"I was at 50-plus through three innings and I really wanted to go seven (innings)," Bannister said. "It took 115 to get through seven tonight. They did a good job. That's not how I like to pitch, but I stayed ahead of them and they worked a couple of full counts on me and made me pitch a lot."

"Banny really helped us out tonight," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "He was really good against a team that was really playing well right now. Some of his stuff was really crisp."

The 26-year-old righthander has now gone 11 straight innings without allowing a run. In his last start on Sunday against the Detroit Tigers, Bannister allowed just one run and four hits over seven innings in a 5-2 triumph.

Butler gave Bannister all the run support he would need in the first inning when he connected on a three-run shot to center field off Rangers starter Jamey Wright (3-3).

"He got it up, not where he wanted to throw it," Butler said of Wright's first-inning pitch. "I got it at the point in the count where I'm glad I didn't miss it."

"Just one pitch - a curveball to Butler on 3-1 and there's three runs with one swing of the bat and got myself in a hole early and got my team in a hole 3-0," Wright said.

It was the 21-year-old rookie's fourth career homer and his 24th RBI in his last 18 contests.

"To get those three runs early was huge," Bannister said. "I really built upon it on the later innings because of that. I know the Rangers played really well against the Mariners in the last series. I knew they were hot. I knew I was going to have to pitch them tough. For Bill to give me three right away, that was a big lift."

Mark Grudzielanek had three hits, drove in a run and scored another for the Royals, who have won two in a row after losing three straight. Grudzielanek is batting .500 (20-for-40) with six RBI and 11 runs scored over his current nine-game hitting streak.

The Royals extended their lead to 4-0 in the third inning on a Ross Gload one-out sacrifice fly that plated Mark Teahen.

Sammy Sosa's 16th home run and 604th of his career in the eighth cut the Royals lead to 5-1.

Wright (3-3), a former Royal who had not faced Kansas City since 2001, allowed five runs and 10 hits with four walks over 6 2/3 innings for his first career loss in three decisions to the Royals.

"He had Butler 0-2 and left a slider up," Texas manager Ron Washington said about Wright. "That was good hitting right there. We fell behind 3-0. He struggled a little bit tonight but he battled through it. At least he got us to the seventh."

The Rangers had won eight of their previous 12 games.

"Bannister didn't give us much," Washington said. "You have to tip your hat to him. We had a couple of opportunities, but he didn't give in to them and got out of the innings, so you've got to give him credit. We certainly didn't give them anything tonight; they beat us."