Meche, Aviles lead Royals over Tigers
9:45 p.m. Monday, September 22, 2008
Royals 6, Tigers 2
The Royals continued to close in on the Detroit Tigers.
Gil Meche earned his 13th victory, David DeJesus had four hits and scored twice and Mike Aviles knocked in two runs as the Royals defeated the Tigers, 6-2, on Monday night in front of 36,482 fans at Comerica Park.
The win left the Royals just one game behind the fourth-place Tigers in the American League Central division standings.
The Royals jumped ahead, 1-0, in the first inning against right-hander Zach Miner when DeJesus led off with a triple to right-center field and scored on Aviles' single. Jose Guillen also singled, but the fun stopped there. On Ryan Shealy's grounder, Aviles was thrown out at the plate and Miner got the next two batters.
In the fifth, successive singles by Alberto Callaspo, DeJesus and Aviles produced a run. Guillen was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no outs. Shealy rapped into a double play and another run was in, but the lead remained 3-0, as Mark Teahen lined out.
Callaspo extended his hitting streak to 16 games and DeJesus' streak reached 13 games.
Meche had little to be concerned about until the sixth inning. After an out, the Tigers loaded the bases and scored two runs, on Magglio Ordonez's sacrifice fly and Jeff Larish's RBI single.
That ended Meche's outing.
The Royals upped their lead to 4-2 in the seventh, when reliever Gary Glover issued a bases-loaded walk to Shealy. But Teahen's liner toward left was snared by third baseman Brandon Inge, who caught Guillen off second for an inning-ending double play.
But they added two runs in the eighth on a wild pitch and DeJesus' RBI single.
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