8B
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SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MLB
MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2007
Expert pitching stops Royals short
Oakland pitcher denies Royals'sweep
BY JANIE MCCAULEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
OAKLAND. Calif. - Lenny DiNardo was lights out again, and the Oakland Athletics found enough offense to avoid the embarrassment of being swept by the Royals at home for the first time in almost two decades.
DiNardo (8-6) allowed three singles to Joey Gathright and allowed only two more hits en route to winning his third straight start and fifth
consecutive decision. Marco Scutaro and Dan Johnson each homered in a 6-1 victory over an improving Kansas City team on Sunday.
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"Is that David Beckham?" teammate Nick Swisher joked while maneuvering past the media swarm around DInardo's locker.
Jeff DaVanon hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the first innning to give DiNardo an early cushion. Scutatar, the fabulous fill-in during his four-year Oakland tenure, hit a solo shot in the fourth for his seventh home run of the year and also had three singles and drove in another run. His four hits matched a career high, a feat he last accomplished Sept. 15. 2006 against the White Sox.
Johnson led off the sixth inning with his 12th homer, and Jack Hannahan added an RBI double two batters later.
DiNardo pitched a career-long eight innings and is 5-0 in his last seven starts, including the first three-start winning streak of his career. He didn't walk a batter for the first time in six starts and pitched two-hit ball into the seventh as the As avoided a third straight defeat.
The left-hander hasn't lost since July 13 at Minnesota, his first start after the All-Star break. He was efficient, too: 50 of his 85 pitches were strikes.
"Hopefully, I'll have a few more of those," DiNardo said. "I was pretty economical out there."
"We didn't take a good approach
Kansas City outscored Oakland 16-5 in the first two games and had a 22-7 scoring edge, including the team's 6-2 win at Texas on Thursday, during a three-game winning streak. But the Royals didn't get on the board Sunday until Emil Brown's RBI single in the seventh scored Mark Grudzielanek, who doubled leading off the inning.
Kansas City Royals shortstop Tony Pena Jr. left, tags out Oakland Athletics' Marco Scutaro as Scutaro tries to steal second base in the second inning of a baseball game in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday.
against him," Royals manager Buddy Bell said of DNardo. "He had a good cutter, he changed speeds and he threw strikes. We didn't make him throw a lot of pitches and that's to his credit. We didn't have a lot of baserunners and we didn't have a lot of opportunities."
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The Royals missed a chance for their first three-game sweep in Oakland since June 14-16, 1988, which would have been only the club's fourth overall here. Kansas City last swept the As in Kansas City from May 18-20, 1999.
DinNardo is making quite the case to be in Oakland's starting rotation in 2008, though manager Bob Geren said that he wasn't ready to commit to anything yet.
Oakland Athletics' Marco Scutaro, right, scores as Kansas City Royals catcher Jason LaRue awaits the throw from the outfield.
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Oakland Athletics' Marco Scutaro drives in a run with a single off Kansas City Royals pitcher John Bale in the seventh inning.
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Kansas City Royals pitcher Kyle Davies, right, gets a visit to the mound from pitching coach Bob McClure, left, after issuing a walk to Oakland Athletics' Jack Cust in the fifth inning.