Jeff Niemann won his sixth consecutive decision, Ben Zobrist had a two-run triple and the Tampa Bay Rays completed a four-game sweep with a 4-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Thursday.
Niemann (7-4) allowed one run and nine hits over 6 1/3 innings. The right-hander is 6-0 in nine starts since returning from a strained lower back.
The Rays’ first four-game home sweep since July 28-31, 2005 — also against Kansas City — included an 8-7 win Wednesday night in which Tampa Bay scored five times in the ninth.
Kansas City rookie left-hander Danny Duffy (3-6) gave up three runs and five hits over seven innings.
Tampa Bay starts a key six-game road trip against New York and Boston on Friday night at Yankee Stadium. The Rays started the day 8½ games behind the AL wild-card leading Yankees and trail AL East-leading Boston by 9½ games.
Rays left-hander David Price (9-10) will face Yankees’ ace CC Sabathia (16-6) in a matchup of AL All-Stars in the opener of a three-game series.
After Joel Peralta threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings for Tampa Bay, Kyle Farnsworth pitched the ninth for his 21st save.
Tampa Bay took a 2-1 lead when Zobrist drove in two runs on a third-inning triple. Desmond Jennings tripled and scored to make it 3-1 on Evan Longoria’s fifth-inning sacrifice fly.
Sean Rodriguez extended the advantage to 4-1 on an eighth-inning RBI single.
The Royals had runners on second and third with no outs in the first, but scored just one run on Eric Hosmer’s grounder. Kansas City was hitless in five at-bats with runners in scoring position through two innings.
Hosmer was retired on a grounder with two on and two outs in the fifth. Niemann struck out Alex Gordon with two outs and the bases loaded one inning later.
Niemann retired 10 in a row after Alcides Escobar had an infield single with one out in the second. He is 4-0 in six games, including five starts, against Kansas City.
Rays designated hitter Johnny Damon singled during the first and moved past George Davis into 65th place on the all-time hits list with 2,684.
— Associated Press —