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Gaudin, Athletics roll past Royals

Apr 19, 2008 - 6:14 AM By Al Barba PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- The Kansas City Royals appeared to be an unlikely opponent for the Oakland Athletics to end their offensive woes against.

Bobby Crosby drove in a career-high five runs and Chad Gaudin pitched seven strong innings to power the Athletics to a 13-2 victory over the Royals on Friday night.

Facing the American League's top pitching staff, the Athletics offensive erupted, producing a four-run sixth inning before putting the game out of reach with eight runs in the eighth.

"Offensively it was nice to break out with some runs," Oakland manager Bob Geren said. "It was a close game really until pretty late when we had the big inning, and then a really big inning."

Oakland entered the game with a .199 batting average (31-for-156) over its last five games, scoring just seven runs in that time. The Athletics nearly doubled that total Friday, scoring a season-high 13 runs while tying another season high with 15 hits.

Gaudin (1-1) turned in his longest outing of the season, allowing four hits, walking one and striking out a season-high eight in seven innings.

"I was more happy with myself in the sense of my control with the fastball and being able to get ahead in counts," Gaudin said. "This was really the first time I felt in control of everything - the game, myself, my body. It was a great feeling. It took a while to get back to it but I finally got there."

After allowing two runs through the first three innings, Gaudin held the Royals scoreless over his final four innings, retiring the last 12 batters he faced, including seven by strikeout.

"He (Gaudin) threw a nice game," Geren said. "He pitched inside to lefties real well. I think that set up all his other pitches and he had a real sharp late-breaking slider. He strung some strikeouts together with it. That was one of the best outings he's had in a real long time. It's a good one to build on."

It appeared the offensive drought would continue for the Athletics, who managed just one run and four hits through the first five innings.

However, Jack Cust opened the sixth with a single and Emil Brown and Ryan Sweeney followed with base hits before Crosby stroked a two-run double to deep left field, chasing starter Brian Bannister (3-1) from the game.

"To get something going, get guys on, that's what you try to do against a guy like Bannister, who's always been pretty tough against us," Crosby said. "Tonight I just saw the ball well. I was looking for fastballs away because (Bannister) has that cutter so you look for hitting the ball the other way and if you can react on the cutter, that's what I tried to do off him."

Ron Mahay relieved Bannister and allowed both inherited runners to score. Travis Buck hit a sacrifice fly and Jack Hannahan singled home the final run with a two-out single to right field, giving the Athletics a 5-2 lead.

Bannister allowed five runs and nine hits in five innings, suffering his first loss of the season.

"I expect a couple of times out of every 10 starts, not to feel good," Bannister said. "And my body was sluggish tonight and my secondary pitches weren't sharp. My slider especially wasn't the same tonight.

"I could tell in the first inning that it wasn't going to be one of my electric nights where I felt really sharp so I battled through it."

Oakland broke the game open with eight runs in the eighth, capped by Crosby's three-run home run - his second of the season.

"Obviously it turned into what ended up being a really ugly situation," Kansas City manager Trey Hillman said. "Walking guys is very dangerous and we took ourselves out of any chances to be able to come back. We took a three-run game to a way-too-far-to-come-back game."