Lowly Royals sweep Bucs

Kansas City's 15-7 victory was loaded with sloppy plays.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- These are, after all, the two losingest teams in the majors, so it was fitting that they would close out their series with a sloppy game.
Kansas City beat Pittsburgh 15-7 Thursday in a game that included four errors, 13 walks, nine unearned runs, two wild pitches, three hit batsman and a zany double play.
"A lot of mistakes," Pittsburgh manager Jim Tracy said. "It was just a medley of things."
The wild victory gave the Royals (22-49) a three-game sweep of the Pirates (26-48), who have lost a season-high eight straight and are 1-8 against the AL this season.
It was also the fourth straight victory for the Royals, who erased 4-0 deficits in winning the first two in this interleague showdown between the worst teams in the AL and NL.
Ups and downs
"Great game, huh?" said Royals manager Buddy Bell. "We did a lot of things good. We did some things that were unacceptable as well."
Kansas City scored two or more runs in six separate innings for the first time since 1991. But perhaps as unusual as anything was the fact the Royals had four innings where they recorded more runs than hits.
"Man, that was a long game," said Kansas City outfielder Reggie Sanders, who scored four times. "It feels like we played two."
Emil Brown and Tony Graffanino drove in three runs apiece and Scott Elarton (3-8) went 52/3 innings and gave up six hits and four runs. But only one was earned as the Royals committed two errors for the second consecutive game.
Kansas City pulled off a strange, lucky double play in the sixth, but the Pirates still scored three runs thanks to an infield error that infuriated Bell and had fans booing shortstop Angel Berroa the rest of the game.
Frozen runners
After Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez singled, Craig Wilson lifted a lazy fly to shallow right-center. The runners froze as second baseman Mark Grudzielanek camped under the ball.
But he lost it in the sun, and the ball dropped cleanly to the turf. So Grudzielanek picked it up and threw to second for the forceout on Sanchez, then Berroa threw to third baseman Mark Teahen for the tag on Bay.
It cost the Pirates two runs because Joe Randa then hit an RBI double.
"It was weird. Every day there's something strange happening," Grudzielanek said. "It's a learning experience out there. It turned out to be a great thing for us."
Oops
But then reliever Todd Wellemeyer walked Jose Castillo and threw a wild pitch that put runners at second and third. And Humberto Cota hit a popup in the infield that dropped out of Berroa's glove for an error as Randa and Castillo raced home to make it 7-5.
Bell said Berroa should not even have been the one to make the play.
"There were two or three other guys calling for it. Just dropping the ball is one thing," Bell said. "But miscommunication is another."
The Royals scored four unearned runs in the seventh with the help of two Pirates errors. First, shortstop Jack Wilson mishandled a routine grounder with two outs that allowed one run to score. Then Brown tripled to right-center for two RBIs and came home when Castillo threw wildly to third.
"We made some mistakes that helped create a four-run inning," said Tracy. "Actually, the way that game went, we got back in the game twice. Of all the different things that occurred, we actually got back in the game twice and handed it back to them twice."
Paul Maholm (2-6) went 41/3 innings, giving up seven runs and six hits. He walked five, and every one of them scored.
"That's pretty much what happens when you walk a lot of guys," he said. "They're going to come around and score. I was just wild and it was a pretty poor outing from the get-go."
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