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White Sox pound three homers, rout Royals

Aug 13, 2008 - 3:36 AM By Rory Spears PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CHICAGO (Ticker) -- The Kansas City Royals and the Chicago White Sox made it through a game without the benches clearing.

This time it was only the baseball that kept clearing the fences, as the White Sox pounded the Royals, 9-0, on Tuesday. Jermaine Dye, Nick Swisher and A.J. Pierzynski all homered, while Javier Vazquez threw eight innings, allowing five hits.

In the teams' last meeting on August 3 in Kansas City, White Sox pitcher D.J. Carrasco hit Royals catcher Miguel Olivo, touching off a bench-clearing brawl after Olivo charged the mound.

"This was not about revenge it's about winning games," Pierzynski said. "Bottom line is we need to win these games, best revenge is just winning these games. We can't afford to lose somebody because of a fight, it's all about getting to the post season."

Dye put the White Sox ahead, 2-0, in the first inning with his 28th home run off Royals starter Brian Bannister, scoring Orlando Cabrera.

"I just got a pitch to hit," Dye said. "That got us going early on and from there Javier just put it on cruise."

Vazquez (9-10), who earned his second win in his last nine starts, allowed only six baserunners while striking out 10 and walking one.

Vazquez recorded his 37th career game with double-digit strikeouts, leaving him 34 shy of 2,000 for his career.

"I felt like I have pitched well the last few starts," Vazquez said. "It's just been a mistake here or there that cost me, tonight I didn't make any mistakes."

Bannister (7-11), who has gone eight starts without a win, settled down after Dye's home run. He retired the next 13 hitters until Swisher launched a 426-foot blast for his 17th home run, making it 3-0.

"I made a bad pitch on the Dye home run," Bannister said. "I left it up trying to get ahead, after that I kept the ball down for the most part."

Pierzynski made it 4-0 in the sixth, hitting his 10th home run to left field.

He added an RBI double in the eighth to score Juan Uribe. Dye then picked up his third RBI with a base hit that scored Pierzynski as part of a five-run inning.

"Bannister was really good tonight, "Pierzynski said. "You have to wait for him to make a mistake, fortunately he left a few pitches up and we took advantage of it."

Kansas City's best scoring opportunities came in the second and third innings, but Alex Gordon's triple in the second and Mike Aviles' double in the next frame did not result in a run. The hits both came with two outs and the runners were left stranded.

"It's the strongest I have seen Vazquez," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "Our players that I asked, said the same thing about him. He had it going on from the first inning."