DeJesus, Gordon homer to rally Royals past Cards

[June 19, 2008]  ST. LOUIS (AP) -- David DeJesus and Alex Gordon hit solo home runs in the eighth inning Wednesday night, rallying Brian Bannister and the Kansas City Royals past the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2.

Last in the AL Central, the Royals improved to 6-2 in interleague play and will try for a three-game sweep of their cross-state rivals Thursday. Kansas City had been 0-37 this season when trailing after seven innings.

Braden Looper held the Royals scoreless on two hits until John Buck had an RBI single in the seventh. Reliever Kyle McClellan (0-2) had allowed only two home runs in 35 2-3 innings when he took over in the eighth with a 2-1 lead.

DeJesus hit his eighth homer with one out. Gordon connected off the rookie right-hander with two outs for his eighth home run.

DeJesus is 8-for-18 with eight RBIs with three homers in the last four games, while Gordon has three homers in eight games after going without a long ball for 107 at-bats.

Ron Mahay struck out Rick Ankiel and got Troy Glaus to ground out with two men on to end the eighth. Joakim Soria worked a perfect ninth for his 17th save in 18 opportunities.

Bannister (6-6) won for the first time in 11 tries while starting a night game. He had been 0-7 overall since beating Detroit under the lights last Aug. 28.

Bannister allowed two runs and nine hits in seven innings.

Looper, working on an extra day of rest, ran his string of scoreless innings to 17 before the seventh. He threw a three-hit shutout at Cincinnati in his last start.

Skip Schumaker had two hits for the Cardinals, and is batting an NL-best .396 this month. But St. Louis has scored three or fewer runs five times while going 3-4 without injured star Albert Pujols.

The Cardinals took the lead after Bannister's first four pitches -- Schumaker and Aaron Miles singled and Ryan Ludwick had a sacrifice fly. Three more singles, the last an infield hit by Jason LaRue that deflected off Bannister, made it 2-0 in the fourth.

St. Louis missed a chance for more in the sixth when Ludwick's routine fly to center field fell 10 feet in front of DeJesus, who had lost track of the ball, for a leadoff double.

Left fielder Jose Guillen made a perfect one-hop throw to third on Ankiel's flyout to the warning track, nailing Ludwick trying to advance.

Looper retired 10 in a row after hitting DeJesus with two outs in the third, a streak ended by Gordon's double leading off the seventh. The Royals caught a break when second baseman Adam Kennedy barehanded Mark Teahen's two-out roller and then mishandled the ball before throwing late to first on a play ruled an infield hit, and Buck followed with an RBI single.

[Associated Press; By R.B. FALLSTROM]

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