Even with Zack Greinke on the mound Tuesday night, the Royals, in their current funk, needed a little bit of help to get pointed in the right direction.
So, yes, they were pleased to accept two throwing errors by Detroit pitcher Edwin Jackson. A few tainted runs unlocked their drowsy attack and provided Greinke with all of the support he needed.
Greinke took it from there and pitched the Royals to a 6-1 victory at Kauffman Stadium.
“It’s fun playing behind him,” third baseman Mark Teahen said. “He just attacks guys. You know if you get three runs, you’re going to have a good chance to win.”
Greinke was magnificent again.
He improved to 8-1 while registering his fifth complete game even as his ERA inched up to 0.84. No other pitcher in either league entered the day with more than two complete games. No other team had more than five.
“We need to start winning some more games,” Greinke said. “We’re not really playing well right now. We’ve got a lot of injuries, but we need to start playing better.”
The victory was just the fifth in 17 games for the Royals, but it allowed them to pull back to .500 at 23-23. It also moved them to within three games of first-place Detroit, 25-19, in the American League Central Division.
It wasn’t as easy as the score suggests.
Jackson, 4-3, overmatched the Royals for five innings before his first throwing error, on a sacrifice bunt, fueled a three-run sixth. Another throwing error, on a pickoff move, led to another run — and his exit — in the seventh.
The Royals did produce some clutch hits in the later innings. Mitch Maier’s two-run single erased a 1-0 deficit after Jackson’s first error.
José Guillen contributed an RBI single in the sixth before ending the Royals’ 61-inning homerless streak with a 402-foot blast in the eighth inning against reliever Brandon Lyon.
“That’s what you need to do,” Maier said. “When you get things rolling, you have to keep the pedal to the metal and keep going. With Zack, you really start to build your confidence when you get a three- or four-run lead.”
Jackson’s collapse resulted in a final line that showed four runs and seven hits in 6 1/3 innings. Two runs were unearned but fully deserved.
Greinke finished with eight strikeouts, including a game-ending punchout of Magglio Ordoñez on his 116th pitch. That avenged Ordoñez’s RBI single in the first inning.
“With Greinke right now,” catcher Miguel Olivo said, “if I was on the other team and he was pitching, I’d say, ‘Take me out.’ Well, not really. But he’s nasty.”
The Tigers clipped Greinke for that 1-0 lead after Placido Polanco flipped a one-out looper past third that fell just fair for a double. Ordoñez followed with an RBI single to center.
Ordoñez’s single extended his hitting streak to 12 games.
Greinke escaped further problems by getting Detroit to hit into double plays in the first, fourth and fifth innings. The latter came courtesy of a terrific catch and throw by shortstop Luis Hernandez with Brandon Inge bearing down on him.
The Royals had just one hit, a two-out double by Teahen in the second inning, before Olivo opened the decisive sixth with a line single into center.
Hernandez followed with a well-placed bunt between Jackson and third baseman Brandon Inge. Jackson fielded it and seemed to slip before throwing wildly past first. Olivo raced to third, and Hernandez took second.
“When he threw it away,” Hernandez said, “that made that inning.”
Maier, who replaced an injured Coco Crisp in the fifth, turned the error into two runs by grounding a single up the middle after failing to execute a bunt.
“I was trying to get it done with the bunt,” Maier said. “After I didn’t get the bunt down, I was just trying to hit a ground ball (because the infield was back) and, worst-case scenario, get the job done with an out. It worked out to be a hit.”
Maier went to second on a sacrifice by David DeJesus — this time, Jackson threw accurately to first. Maier took third on Billy Butler’s single to right before Guillen pulled a RBI single through the left side of the infield for a 3-1 lead.
That was plenty for Greinke. Another run in the seventh and two more in the eighth just made it easier.
To reach Bob Dutton, Royals reporter for The Star, send e-mail to bdutton@kcstar.com
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