Road worries continue as Indians lose in K.C.

Cleveland is three games below .500 away from Jacobs Field.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — John Buck and Mike Sweeney each homered for the second straight game, fueling a five-run second inning in the Kansas City Royals’ 11-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday night.

Mark Grudzielanek was 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs.

Buck added an RBI double and Alex Gordon also homered and drove in two runs to help the Royals win for the eighth time in 10 games and drop the Indians to 10-13 on the road.

Reliever Brandon Duckworth (2-3), who went three strong innings, inherited a lead but was credited with the victory because starter Scott Elarton failed to go five innings. Indians starter Cliff Lee (2-1) also failed to get out of the fifth.

Early lead lost

The Indians’ Grady Sizemore and Casey Blake opened a wild first inning with back-to-back home runs, but the Royals erased Cleveland’s 3-0 lead with two runs in the first and their big second inning to go up 7-3.

Buck led off the second with a homer, and Mike Sweeney capped it with a two-run shot. In between, Grudzielanek hit an RBI double and scored on Mark Teahen’s single.

The Royals never trailed again, but Elarton sat down with two out in the fifth, after David Dellucci’s RBI ground-rule double got Cleveland within 7-4 and put runners on second and third. Duckworth got Josh Barfield to ground to short, ending the threat, and retired the first nine batters he faced before Ryan Garko doubled with two out in the eighth.

Barfield doubled Garko home to get Cleveland within 9-5. Jimmy Gobble then came in and struck out Sizemore.

Relief woes

After giving up Gordon’s solo homer with one out in the fifth, Lee was relieved by Mike Koplove, whose contract was purchased from Triple-A Buffalo earlier Wednesday. Buck’s double off Koplove later in the inning put the Royals up 9-4.

Octavio Dotel, activated Tuesday after starting the season on the disabled list because of a strained left oblique, pitched the ninth and allowed a two-run homer by Travis Hafner.

Lee gave up eight runs on 10 hits, walking three and striking out one.

Cleveland homered on consecutive at-bats for the second time this year and led off a game with two home runs for the third time in franchise history. The last previous time also came in Kansas City, on July 21, 2002.

Sizemore’s leadoff homer was his third of the season — and the 11,000th home run in Indians franchise history.