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Nunez pitches Royals past Rangers

Jul 30, 2007 - 12:34 AM KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- The Kansas City Royals have completed their first home sweep of the Texas Rangers in more than five years.

David DeJesus and Tony Pena drove in three runs apiece and Leo Nunez pitched six scoreless innings to lead the Royals to a 10-0 victory over the Rangers on Sunday.

The Royals have won four straight and this three-game sweep of the Rangers at Kauffman Stadium was the first since July 15-16, 2002.

"It was my best start," said Nunez, through interpretor and teammate Octavio Dotel. "I was locating all my pitches. I was using all three pitches - fastball, changeup and slider. I put everything together."

Nunez (1-0), recalled from Class AAA Omaha earlier in the day to replace Scott Elarton who was released Wednesday, surrendered just three hits in earning his first major league victory as a starter. The 23-year-old also walked one and struck out one.

"It seemed like he was in control from the very first pitch," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "It would be wonderful if he continues to do this for us. It's tough to do every time. But just from the standpoint of being aggressive and throwing strikes, you can't do much better than that. He was really good today."

Joel Peralta pitched the final three innings to earn his first save of the season.

The Royals got the only runs Nunez would need in the second inning on RBI doubles by Mark Teahen and DeJesus along with a two-run double by Pena, which gave Kansas City a 4-0 advantage.

"I needed that today," Teahen said. "I haven't been hitting and I just wanted to join in with the rest of the guys. We did pretty well, so I was glad I could add something to that."

Kansas City extended its lead to 6-0 in the sixth inning on RBI singles by Pena and DeJesus. Pena, who collected two hits for the second consecutive game, has five RBI in his last two contests.

"I thought we would come in here and play better than we did," Texas manager Ron Washington said. "They outhit us, outpitched us, outplayed us."

Run-scoring singles by Ross Gload, Reggie Sanders and Esteban German and a bases loaded walk to DeJesus in the seventh inning increased the lead 10-0. Gload finished the day with three hits.

"Texas is a great offensive team and our pitchers did a good job with them," Gload said. "Our pitchers did a good job on them and we scored some runs and that's key."

Nunez, who made his first major league start and only other appearance of the season on July 17 at Boston, gained his second career victory against the Rangers. He picked up a win in relief on September 4, 2005.

"From his fastball, to his slider and his changeup, he was able to mix up all of his pitches and throw of all of his pitches for strikes," catcher Jason LaRue said. "We didn't really go into a lot of deep counts."

Texas starter Kameron Loe (5-9) lost for the third time in his last five outings after winning four straight. He allowed five runs, eight hits and three walks while striking out two.

"When you get behind guys who like to swing the bat a bunch, you get hurt," Loe said. "I got a bunch of seeing-eye singles in key situations and that hurt me as well. That's the blessing and the curse of the sinkerball sometimes - you get easy outs that go right to guys or you get three-hoppers that happen to get through."

Gerald Laird had two hits for the Rangers, who have dropped three straight after winning four in a row. Michael Young went hitless for Texas and saw his 11-game hitting streak come to an end.