KANSAS CITY — David DeJesus and Alex Gordon both homered and the Kansas City Royals, the lowest-scoring team in the AL, banged out 14 hits in a 9-4 victory Wednesday night over Jered Weaver and the Los Angeles Angels.
Zack Greinke (4-1) went seven innings for the victory as the Royals snapped the Angels’ four-game winning streak and won at home for just the fourth time in 13 games.
Weaver (2-5) had his worst start of the year, charged with a season-high eight runs in a season-low 3 1-3 innings. The right-hander gave up 10 hits and had one walk and one strikeout.
DeJesus hit a three-run shot off him in the second and Gordon added a two-run drive in the fourth, bringing in reliever Chris Bootcheck.
Kansas City’s Jose Guillen, after being rested for a day because he was hitting only .165, was 3-for-3 with two doubles. Mark Grudzielanek also had three hits as everybody in the Royals lineup hit safely. The 14 hits and nine runs both tied the team’s season highs.
Greinke gave up five hits and three runs, striking out eight and walking two. His ERA, the second-lowest in the league entering the game at 1.47, rose to 1.80 and fell a bit farther behind Cleveland’s Cliff Lee, who pitched seven shutout innings against the Yankees Wednesday night and lowered his major league-leading ERA to 0.81.
Greinke’s only loss this year was a 2-1 decision to Texas when he gave up only four hits and struck out nine in seven innings.
Garret Anderson homered in the ninth inning off Yasuhiko Yabuta, giving him three home runs and eight RBIs in the three-game series.
Leading off the fourth, Anderson tripled. But he got no farther as Greinke retired the next nine batters until Reggie Willits singled leading off the seventh and Napoli cracked his team-leading eighth home run, a towering 422-foot drive that made it 9-3. Vladimir Guerrero had an RBI single in the first for the Angels.
The loss was only the third in nine games for the Angels, who are seeing a statistical curiosity take shape. In their last eight wins, they’ve held opponents to a total of 15 runs, or fewer than two per game. But in their last six losses, they’ve allowed 55.
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