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Indians throttle Royals

Sep 6, 2008 - 4:50 AM By Pat Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- The Cleveland Indians continued their season-long domination of the Kansas City Royals with a 9-3 victory on Friday.

It was the Indians' fourth consecutive win against the Royals and the eighth triumph in 12 tries versus their American League Central rivals.

In the last four conquests against Kansas City, Cleveland has outscored the Royals, 35-15.

Asdrubal Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Jamey Carroll and Shin-Soo Choo each collected two hits for the Indians, who finished with 12 hits. Jhonny Peralta scored three times for the Indians.

Edward Mujica (2-1) tossed two innings of scoreless relief to earn the victory. He did not allow a run and gave up four hits while striking out one.

"I thought he was good," Cleveland manager Eric Wedge said. "He picked us up there. I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to get him through two or three (innings), and he had to come out after that second one. He had to sit down - that's when we put that inning together, so I knew he was going to have to get it back when he went back out there, and he was up around 30 pitches, so I didn't want to push it."

Indians starter Anthony Reyes lasted three innings, leaving with right elbow soreness. It was his shortest outing as a starter. He did not allow a run and surrendered one hit, striking out two and walking one.

"I couldn't really loosen up at the beginning of the game, so I was just being careful and that's when they took me out," Reyes said.

"He just wasn't able to get loose and we didn't want to push it," Wedge said. "He could have probably pushed it through five or six innings. Obviously, he was still throwing the ball well. It was a little bit cooler tonight, and I didn't see any sense in this time of year pushing him, so we decided to get him out of there."

Royals starter Brandon Duckworth (2-1) was tagged with his first loss, allowing five runs and five hits in four-plus innings. He struck out one and walked three.

"He struggled in the third and the fourth inning," Kansas City manager Trey Hillman said. "He was trying to do too much."

"In the fifth inning, it was single, single, single," Duckworth said. "It was frustrating. They're a good hitting team."

The Indians broke the game open in the fifth inning, stroking seven straight singles and scoring six runs to make it 8-0. Four different players - David Dellucci, Peralta, Carroll and Martinez - drove in runs.

"It was a good inning for us," Carroll said. "It just shows you that when your team is successful and everybody contributes - that's what happened that inning."

"The guys did a good job of moving it on down the line, just kept pushing to the next guy," Wedge said. "I thought we put up some real good at-bats, too. We were spraying the ball around a little bit. It wasn't like we were driving the gap - we were hitting singles. That was good stuff."

"It wasn't good playing the third game in the last two days," Hillman said. "We've got to be able to stop the bleeding a lot sooner than we did."

Cabrera's RBI single in the second helped Cleveland score twice. The Indians also drew three walks in the frame.

The Royals scored three times in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by David DeJesus and a two-run double by Jose Guillen.

Kila Ka'aihue collected his first major league hit in the seventh while Billy Butler went hitless in four at-bats to end a 10-game hitting streak for Kansas City.