DETROIT (AP) – Placido Polanco had four hits, including a home run, to power an 18-hit attack Sunday that carried the Detroit Tigers to a 14-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals.
Polanco scored four runs and drove in two for Detroit, which won its second straight after a nine-game losing streak. Brandon Inge and Chris Shelton also homered for the Tigers, who broke open a tie game with four runs in the fifth. The 18 hits tied a season-high for Detroit.
Detroit starter Jason Johnson (8-12) gave up three runs on eight hits, not walking a batter and striking out four. Kansas City’s Joe Lima (5-15) allowed five runs, four earned, on seven hits in four innings plus two batters. He walked two and struck out one.
Inge’s two-run homer in the fifth, which broke a 3-3 tie, finished Lima. Inge’s 13th of the season followed Polanco’s leadoff bunt single. Vance Wilson drove in two runs later in the inning with a two-out bases-loaded single off of Leo Nunez.
Polanco led off the sixth with his fourth home run of the season, which also came off of Nunez. Detroit added six in the seventh off of Jeremy Affeldt and Chris Demaria.
Curtis Granderson singled in a run, Polanco drove in one with a double, Inge had a sacrifice fly and Nook Logan hit a two-run triple and scored on an error.
Detroit took a 2-0 lead in the first on Shelton’s two-run homer. His 13th of the season also scored Polanco, who had reached on an error by shortstop Angel Berroa. The Tigers made it 3-0 in the third on Granderson’s two-out RBI double. It scored Craig Monroe, who had led off with a double. Polanco followed Granderson with a single but left fielder Terrence Long threw out Granderson at the plate to end the inning.
Kansas City scored in the third on Long’s run-scoring single. The Royals tied it 3-3 in the fifth on Andres Blanco’s bunt RBI single and Mike Sweeney’s run-producing single. Mark Teahen singled in a run for Kansas City in the eighth.
Notes: Shelton’s homer was his first since Aug. 19. … Lima has allowed 28 home runs this season in 29 games. … This was Polanco’s second-straight four-hit game. He is 8-for-10 with five runs scored and three RBIs.
AP-ES-09-11-05 1503EDT
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