GAME THREAD: GAME THREAD: AL: CLEVELAND (70-56) at KANSAS CITY (56-70)

Royals' bullpen holds down Indians

<h3>KANSAS CITY 2, CLEVELAND 1</h3>By Patrick Madden
PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer


KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) - The Kansas City Royals got astellar performance out of their bullpen and some timely hittingen route to a 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Fridaynight.


Emil Brown and Esteban German each drove in a run for Royals,who posted their ninth win in their last 13 games against theIndians at Kauffman Stadium.


Zack Greinke, making his first start since May 6, hurled threeinnings and allowed just one hit while walking one and strikingout two. The righthander left after tossing just 48 pitches inhis first extended outing of the campaign.


"When you beat their big guy (Indians starter C.C. Sabathia),who had great stuff, and that might have been the best stuffwe've seen all year," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "Whenyou're able to come out with a 2-1 win, it makes it even thatmuch more special. We needed to pitch the way we did tonight towin."


John Bale (1-1) pitched three solid innings and allowed one hit,striking out a season-high five to give him two consecutivesolid relief appearances. Against the Chicago White Sox onTuesday, the lefthander allowed one hit while striking out twoin three frames.


"I just tried to stay aggressive, change it up inside, move theball around, change speeds," Bale said. "My changeup waseffective tonight. That's something that I haven't had inprevious games. I finally found it."


"John Bale saved our butt," Bell said. "The way he pitched andgot through some of their lefthanded hitters was reallyoutstanding."


Four more relievers hurled the final three innings, includingcloser Joakim Soria, who stranded the go-ahead run on first basein the ninth to pick up his 14th save.


Sabathia (14-7) was denied his 15th victory of the season,despite allowing two runs and five hits while walking one andstriking out five in eight innings.


The loss continued a trend for Sabathia, who is 1-3 in his lastseven starts. His only win in that stretch was a 5-2 victory atMinnesota on August 3.


"My command wasn't there like normal," Sabathia said. "I wasjust trying to battle and throw strikes. I'm not frustrated.That's just baseball."


"That was another great effort that we didn't take advantageof," Cleveland manager Eric Wedge said. "He was still strong.He earned the right to stay out there."


Kansas City took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning on Brown's RBIgroundout, scoring Mark Grudzielanek.


The Royals played small ball to extend their lead to 2-0 in thefifth. Tony Pena Jr. was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning,moved to second on a passed ball by Cleveland catcher VictorMartinez and was sacrificed to third by Joey Gathright.

He then scored on German's sacrifice fly.


"We did a good job of situational hitting, moving the runnersover, doing the things we need to do to win," Royals catcherJohn Buck said. "It even gets more emphasis when you face apitcher like that. If we don't have situational hittingtonight, we don't win."


Cleveland broke through in the seventh on Ryan Garko's bloopsingle to make it 2-1.


"We're still seeing some issues with our offense," Wedge said."Consistency, or lack of. We had pitches to hit."

Despite the loss, the Indians (70-57) continued to hold a 21/2-game lead on the Detroit Tigers (68-59) for first place inthe American League Central. The Tigers host the New YorkYankees in the opener of a four-game set later Friday night.