They came up with a great formula to end their six-game skid at U.S. Cellular Field. Starter Gil Meche pitched superbly, as well as the bullpen, and three players -- John Buck, Billy Butler and Mike Aviles -- each drove in three runs in Saturday night's 9-1 victory over the White Sox.
The 36,566 fans saw Kansas City win for the first time at the Cell since last Sept. 25.
"These guys have played us tough," Butler said.
Sure have. Until this victory, the first-place White Sox held a 6-1 advantage over the Royals this season, including four wins here.
Meche, in his first start of the second half, pitched like a man on mission. In his 6 1/3 innings, he gave up just two hits and one run.
"Gil pitched a great game, kept his pitch count low and kept us in the ballgame and did a real good job," catcher Buck said. "He was on tonight."
Over the first five innings Meche allowed the White Sox just one baserunner, Joe Crede, who doubled in the third. He retired 16 of the first 17 batters he faced. The Sox finally scored in the sixth on Alexei Ramirez's triple and Orlando Cabrera's sacrifice fly.
Meantime, Buck pounded a two-run homer against Gavin Floyd to break a scoreless tie in the fifth. Ross Gload reached base on Crede's error and Buck put his sixth homer into the left-field seats on a 0-1 pitch.
"He threw a cutter, then got a sinker in over the plate and I was able to get a good swing on it," Buck said.
Joey Gathright followed with a single, stole second and eventually scored on Butler's line-drive single to left for a 3-0 lead. Two of the runs were unearned.
Butler belted a two-run homer in the eighth, his second blast in two nights. David DeJesus singled against Boone Logan and the lefty was relieved by righty Nick Masset. On a 2-0 pitch, Butler sent a 406-foot drive over the center-field wall.
It was the first time that Butler had hit homers in back-to-back games in the Majors.
"It's a good feeling," he said. "You hope there are more of those to come. I'm not trying to hit the ball out of the park. I'm just trying to square it up and I got underneath and they went out."
In the last two games, Butler has seven RBIs after having just one in his previous 25 games.
"That means more to me than anything," he said.
The Royals didn't stop there and made it a six-run eighth inning. Buck singled for his third RBI and Aviles cleared the bases with a three-run double, a looping fly to left field off reliever Adam Russell.
"I got lucky," Aviles said. "Luckily it fell in and we got three more run and that actually put it over the top."
The good ol' good luck factor.
"It's absolutely part of the game," Aviles said. "We've been on the other end quite a few times. It's good to be on this end."
Aviles now has a nine-game hitting streak in which he's 16-for-40, .400.
Meche was pulled in the seventh after he issued his first walk on four pitches to Carlos Quentin and fanned Jermaine Dye for his sixth strikeout. Left-hander Ron Mahay retired Jim Thome and Paul Konerko to end the inning.
"It came down to the matchup with Mahay and Thome and he came in and got us out of there," Meche said, "and we scored some big runs late in the game."
With the lead fattened, Ramon Ramirez followed Mahay and got all three batters he faced in the eighth. Horacio Ramirez pitched a scoreless ninth to close it out.
The bullpen help meant that Meche had a 7-3 career record over the White Sox. Even better, it meant the Royals had finally broken out of that Cell block.
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