KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Fernando Rodney was good for another dozen pitches and the Seattle Mariners were good for a sweep.

Rodney, working for the fourth straight day, earned his 21st save in 23 chances as the Mariners defeated the Kansas City Royals 2-1 on Sunday for a three-game sweep.

Rodney, who had thrown 46 pitches in the previous three days, got saves in all three games at Kansas City. He last got into four consecutive games on May 27-30, 2013, for Tampa Bay.

“It was no problem,” Rodney said. “I said I feel ready. I got warmed up and felt good, felt loose. That’s why I’m a reliever.”

“Sometimes early in the season you have a little problem with getting loose. When the weather warms up it helps get me a little more loose,” he said.

Rodney dispatched the Royals on 12 pitches, giving up a two-out single to pinch-hitter Mike Moustakas before striking out Pedro Ciriaco to preserve the one-run lead.

“It’s simple,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said on summoning Rodney once again. “I had a talk with him and he felt good. He’s worked very, very efficiently, and he was very efficient today as well. He has not thrown a lot of pitches. He’s definitely off tomorrow. He asked me if he could go to the Dominican, but I told him no.”

Rookie Roenis Elias pitched neatly into the seventh inning and Mike Zunino homered for the Mariners, who have won 18 of their past 26 road games.

After winning 10 straight to move into first place in the AL Central, the Royals have dropped four in a row, three of them by 2-1 scores.

“We’re playing fine, but just an offensive down turn a little bit,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “You go through the ups and downs. A four-game losing streak right when you had put together a nice 10-game winning streak, it’s tough.”

Elias (7-5), a 25-year-old left-hander from Cuba, limited the Royals to one run and five singles over 6 2/3 innings. He struck out five, walked two and improved to 4-1 in June.

“Everything was working,” Elias said through a translator.

Zunino hit his ninth home run, tops among AL catchers. He connected off Yordano Ventura (5-6) leading off the seventh to break a 1-all tie.

“Even though things aren’t going our way right now, I think we’re playing really good,” Ventura said with teammate Bruce Chen acting as interpreter.

Zunino led off the fifth with a double and scored on Willie Bloomquist’s two-out double.

“We stepped up to the challenge and were able take three from them,” Bloomquist said. “It shows what we’re able to do when we play well. Those guys are a very, very good baseball team. Granted, a bounce here or there and it could have come out differently.”

Ventura (5-6) had won his previous three starts.

“He hung a breaking pretty good (to Zunino),” Yost said. “Outside of that, he pitched a great ball game. Anytime you go seven innings and give up two runs you give your team a chance to win a game that’s a great job.”

The Royals scored their run in the second, which Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez opened with singles. Justin Maxwell’s sacrifice fly brought home Gordon.

Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar left in the seventh with a bruised left shin. He was hit in the second by a pitch. X-rays were negative.

The Mariners won a challenge in the seventh when Ciriaco was ruled safe at first for a bunt single. After a reliever that took over 3 minutes, the call was overturned and Ciriaco was out.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Dustin Ackley delivered the clutch hit, while Chris Young baffled the Kansas City Royals batters.

Ackley drove in the go-ahead run with a two-out ninth inning single as the Seattle Mariners beat the Royals 2-1 on Saturday.

His single to right on a 2-2 count scored Kyle Seager, who doubled with two outs to start the game-winning rally. Seager moved to third on Stefen Romero’s infield single before Ackley’s hit. Ackley is 5-for-10 off Jason Vargas (7-3), who took the loss.

“It was basically a battling at-bat,” Ackley said. “I got behind early and I know he’s a guy who will throw any pitch in any count. I fouled a couple of pitches off and fortunately I was able to get the barrel on it and get it into the outfield.”

Vargas said he jammed Ackley with a fastball.

“He was just able to get it over the infield,” Vargas said.

The Mariners are only 7-12 in one-run games, while the Royals have dropped three in a row, all one-run decisions.

“If you want to have a good winning season, you have to win games like this,” Ackley said.

After retiring the first dozen Royals, Young yielded a home run to Alex Gordon to leadoff the fifth to tie the score at 1.

“I made a mistake,” Young said. “He can hit it out, but I can live with it because it’s a solo homer.”

Young gave up back-to-back singles to Salvador Perez and Justin Maxwell after Gordon’s team-leading ninth home run. Perez, however, was out trying to stretch his into a double.

“He’s really tough to pick the ball up,” said Eric Hosmer, who went 0-for-4. “He’s throwing 84-85 miles per hour, but he has such a long arm and his release point is so close to you that’s it really hard to pick up. He’s been real consistent for those guys.”

The Mariners bunched three hits leading off the third with Cole Gillespie’s single to center scoring Brad Miller, who began the inning with a bunt single and stopped at second on James Jones’ single.

Young, a 35-year-old right-hander who has had three shoulder surgeries including one last June, did not did not sign with the Mariners until March 27 after the Washington Nationals released him in spring training. He was pulled after seven innings, allowing only the run on Gordon’s blast and three hits.

“He’s an amazing story,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “His fastball is 85 to 88 (mph) and is straight, but nobody sees it. There is an amount of deception the hitters tell you. They’re on it and they’re not.”

Yoervis Medina (4-1) replaced Young and worked a flawless eighth, striking out two to pick up the victory. He has not allowed a run and only three hits in his past 10 outings, covering 10 1/3 innings.

Fernando Rodney worked the ninth for his 20th save in 22 opportunities, getting Hosmer to ground into a game ending double play.

“Chris pitched extremely well,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said. “He just had the one fastball that came back over the middle of the plate to Gordon. He probably got a little bit tired with the heat, but the bullpen did a good job.”

Vargas gave up 10 hits and two runs in 8 2/3 innings, losing for the first time since May 19. Yost came out to the mound after Seager’s double, but let him in.

“He just asked me if I could get him, and I said, `Yeah.’ There wasn’t a whole lot more than that,” Vargas said. “I felt great in the ninth inning. Just a little bit of bad luck got us and I think we all know what happened after that.”

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Brad Miller stepped to the plate against one of baseball’s best closers in the ninth inning of a tied game, a sellout crowd rooting for him to fail.

Miller silenced them all with one swing of the bat.

The Seattle shortstop pounded a pitch from the Royals’ Greg Holland just inside the right-field foul pole, his homer breaking a 5-all tie and helping the Mariners to a 7-5 victory Friday night.

“That was honestly one of the best baseball games I’ve been a part of,” Miller said with a grin. “They’re one of the hottest teams in baseball and I was pumped.”

Logan Morrison drove in another run later in the ninth to provide some breathing room.

“What a swing by Miller. Oh my goodness,” he said. “He crushed it.”

Charlie Furbush (1-4) inherited a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth, but the Mariners reliever calmly retired Mike Moustakas on a lazy popup to shallow right field. Furbush then struck out Alcides Escobar to silence a crowd of 38,475 and keep the game tied.

After Holland (0-2) coughed up the lead, Fernando Rodney allowed two singles in the ninth for Seattle. But the veteran closer bounced back to retire pinch-hitter Nori Aoki on a groundout, and then he struck out Alex Gordon on three pitches to earn his 19th save.

“They are big league baseball players. Big league ballplayers don’t miss mistakes too often,” Holland said. “I got up on (Miller) two strikes and didn’t get the slider where I wanted. I made a mistake. Sometimes you pay for them and I did tonight.”

Morrison added a two-run homer for Seattle, which overcame a subpar start from Hisashi Iwakuma to end the Royals’ five-game winning streak at Kauffman Stadium. Mike Zunino added a solo shot and Robinson Cano drove in two runs, extending his hitting streak to 21 games.

Moustakas hit a two-run shot to lead the Royals, who have dropped two in a row after winning 10 straight. Salvador Perez homered and drove in two runs for Kansas City.

“Listen, we ran into a buzz saw. These guys are hot and everything is going for them,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said. “When you run into teams like that you have to play extremely well.”

Iwakuma went eight shutout innings in each of his two starts against Kansas City this season, and the right-hander was headed that way again with four scoreless frames to start the game. Along the way, Iwakuma struck out the side in the first inning on just 12 pitches.

Meanwhile, his offense was staking him to a 5-0 lead.

Cano, who has dominated James Shields throughout his career, drove in a run off him in the first inning and another during a three-run fifth that was capped by Morrison’s homer. Zunino’s solo shot came in the fourth inning, a no-doubt rocket over the bullpen in left.

The Royals finally broke through when Perez homered on a meaty 0-2 pitch in the fifth.

They didn’t stop there, either. Lorenzo Cain followed with a double, and Moustakas belted his eighth homer of the season over the wall in right to trim the Royals’ deficit to 5-3.

Iwakuma escaped the inning, but he quickly ran into more trouble in the sixth. Consecutive singles by Billy Butler and Gordon knocked him from the game, and reliever Dominic Leone gave up the lead when Perez hit an RBI single and Moustakas an RBI groundout to make it 5-all.

Iwakuma allowed nine hits and a walk in five-plus innings. It was his shortest start since July 9, 2013, when he allowed six runs and eight hits in three innings against the Red Sox.

Shields went seven innings and still has not lost since May 2, a span of nine starts.

“It was a great to see the crowd come out, obviously a sellout. We love it when the fans come out,” Shields said of the rare packed house. “We didn’t get a win for them tonight, but hopefully they keep coming out and we’ll get some wins here.”

— Associated Press —