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Smith blasts two homers as Royals down Athletics

Aug 19, 2007 - 5:58 AM By Ryan Leong PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

OAKLAND, California (Ticker) - Jason Smith helped the Kansas City Royals continue to feel right at home in Oakland.

Smith hit two homers and drove in four runs and Odalis Perez pitched five scoreless innings as the Royals beat the Oakland Athletics, 7-3, on Saturday night in the second of a three-game series.

Ross Gload also homered and scored twice for the Royals, who have won five of their last six games at McAfee Coliseum.

"It's just one of those things," Gload said. "We were playing pretty bad. We played two bad games in Texas and then the last three we put it together."

Smith, who entered the game hitting .179 with two home runs and two RBI, registered his third career multi-homer performance.

"I just picked a day where the wind's blowing out just right," Smith said. "I was fortunate enough to put two good swings on pitches and they went out."

The 30-year-old Smith, who has been with six different clubs since breaking into the major leagues in 2001, gave Kansas City a 3-0 lead with a two-run shot off Athletics starter Chad Gaudin (9-9) in the second inning.

"It's always great to see a kid that doesn't play all the time just really help the team," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "It makes him feel a part of it. When you don't play, you don't contribute. It's hard to feel a part of it so I'm real real happy for him."

"I just have to work hard and take as many swings as I can. We have early hitting the first day of every series and I'm always there for that," Smith said. "I take a good amount of swings in the cage to keep myself mechanically where I need to be. I get away from that sometimes. I get in there sometimes and try to do too much."

Smith added to the Royals' advantage in the eighth by blasting another two-run shot over the right field wall, opening a 7-3 lead.

"After we gave up those three runs in the sixth, it was good for us as a team to put a couple of more runs on and tack them on late," Smith said. "That's what good teams do, they continue to put runs on. Hopefully, we can build on that and one day people will be saying we're a good team and we're able to do that."

Before Smith's first blast, Gload doubled and scored on an RBI single by Alex Gordon in the second to give Kansas City an early 1-0 edge.

Perez (8-11) struggled with his command, issuing four walks, but surrendered just three hits and did not allow a run.

"It feels 50-50," Perez said. "I don't want to be out there going only five innings. I don't consider myself a five-inning pitcher. I want to go more innings, less pitches and give the team an opportunity to win."

The lefthander ran into trouble in the third inning. After retiring the first two batters, he walked the bases loaded, but Mike Piazza was unable to take advantage as he flied out to left to end the threat.

After throwing 98 pitches, Perez was relieved by Joel Peralta, who struggled, allowing three runs, three hits and a walk while retiring just two batters as the Athletics closed the gap to 4-3.

"He's not afraid to go deep in the count to make hitters anxious but he's tough," Bell said of Perez. "He knows what he's doing and sometimes it's not pretty but it's effective. He gets it done."

Bell was forced to bring in David Riske, who got the Royals out of the jam as Kurt Suzuki flied out.

Joey Gathright's RBI single in the seventh inning opened a 5-3 advantage for Kansas City.

Gaudin, who has lost six of his last seven decisions, yielded five runs and a season-high 10 hits in six innings. The 24-year-old righthander has seen his ERA balloon from 2.88 to 4.25 since July 5.

"He has in previous starts been victimized by the home run," Athletics manager Bob Geren said of Gaudin. "His last game he pitched real well before tonight. The last three or four starts that has led to some runs for sure."

"That's baseball, when you're pitching you're going to give up runs and give up home runs," Gaudin said. "It's just going to happen and you're just going to have to minimize the amount of runs to keep your team in the game. I'm just trying to catch that groove but I'm going to take the positives out of it and go out there and attack the next game."

Kansas City has a chance to match its season-best four-game winning streak on the road on Sunday.

"I think we've been playing in such hot weather, we came here and (the cooler temperature) kind of gave us a little boost of energy," Bell said. "We won tonight, we didn't play exactly great but we need to win tomorrow, that would be nice."