Andy Pettitte limited the Kansas City Royals to five hits and one run over 6 2/3 innings to help the New York Yankees salvage the final game of a three-game series with a 6-1 win Thursday night at Kauffman Stadium.
Pettitte, who evened his 2008 record at 1-1, handed off a 4-1 lead to the strength of the Yankees' bullpen -- right-handers Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera -- who finished the job for New York (5-5).
The loss snapped Kansas City's second three-game winning streak of the season, as it fell to 6-3. The Royals remain in first place in the American League Central standings, one-half game ahead of the Chicago White Sox.
John Bale (0-2) took the loss for the Royals, going six innings and allowing four earned runs on eight hits, while striking out three and walking one. Hideo Nomo made his first Major League appearance since 2005, coming out of the bullpen for the Royals, and struggled through scoreless seventh and eighth innings until giving up back-to-back ninth-inning solo home runs to Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada.
Offensively for Kansas City, left fielder Mark Teahen was 3-for-4 and scored the Royals' lone run in the first inning on an RBI double by Jose Guillen.
Kansas City continues its homestand on Friday night when they play host to the Minnesota Twins at 7:10 p.m. Royals right-hander Gil Meche (0-1) takes the mound against Livan Hernandez (2-0) in a rematch of last Saturday's game at the Metrodome, which Minnesota won by a score of 6-4.
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I'm not sure I'd say Nomo was cruising until the home runs. He was only hitting about 85-86 on the stadium radar gun, he was struggling with his command (2BB/0K, and nearly 50/50 split on balls/strikes thrown), and he got hit pretty hard even on a few outs. He was struggling in the 7th and 8th, and when he came back out for the 9th I took it to mean that Hillman just wanted to finish the game without burning any of his more valuable relievers. And maybe that's a decent attitude to take when you're down 4-1 and facing Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera with three more games against a divisional rival coming up. Still a little disappointing, though, but I guess the bats never came alive anyway, so it ended up being a prudent move.
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