Ponson, Orioles Edge Royals

It isn't often that a pitcher gives up nine hits and goes the distance, and there aren't too many games in which a bunt travels 100 feet to drive in the tiebreaking run.

Just call it solid evidence that the Baltimore Orioles are finally having things go their way.

Sidney Ponson scattered nine hits and Jeff Reboulet snapped a tie with an unusual seventh-inning bunt as the Orioles won their seventh straight, 2-1 over Kansas City on Wednesday.

Ponson (7-4) blanked the Royals over the final eight innings for his AL-best third complete game. The right-hander struck out four and walked two to help the Orioles finish their first three-game sweep of the Royals since April 1996.

Ponson made 20 starts as a rookie last year and seven more this season before pitching his first complete game. Now he has three in his last six starts, including two straight during Baltimore's longest winning streak in nearly a year.

"I just worry about winning ballgames. It doesn't matter if I go five, six or seven innings," he said. "I always shoot for seven innings. If eight or nine comes, it's a bonus."

Ponson further downplayed his performance by declaring, "I didn't do anything. The hero today is Jeff Reboulet."

With the score 1-1 in the seventh, Harold Baines hit an opposite-field double to left and advanced on a bunt by Cal Ripken, who reached when pitcher Jose Rosado tried to get Baines at third. Reboulet then squared to bunt and punched the ball past charging first baseman Jeremy Giambi to the edge of the outfield grass, easily scoring Baines.

"That's a great play in baseball. Runners on first and third with no out, you push the ball to the right side, the worst that's going to happen is they throw the ball to second," Orioles manager Ray Miller said.

"I got the bunt-for-a-hit sign and just tried to figure out the right way to go," Reboulet said.

Jermaine Dye doubled with onout in the Kansas City eighth and took third on a two-out wild pitch, but Ponson retired Joe Randa on a grounder to third. Scott Leius hit a two-out single in the ninth before Ponson got Scott Pose to hit a grounder to Reboulet.

Rosado (4-6) pitched a seven-hitter and lowered his ERA to 2.86 but lost for the fourth time in five starts.

"Baines got a double, he didn't try to do that, he swung at a pitch he wasn't supposed to swing at and got it down the line," Rosado said. "And the bunt, that was the game right there. They hit a squeeze play over the infield grass. It's strange."

Pose and Carlos Beltran had two hits apiece for the Royals, who have lost five straight.

Royals shortstop Rey Sanchez left the game in the first inning after being struck in the face by a ball thrown by second baseman Carlos Febles. Febles, who went to the outfield to retrieve a cutoff throw from right fielder Dye, was only 20 feet from Sanchez when launching a throw toward third base on a triple by Rich Amaral.

He received 11 stitches over his left eye, but the Royals hope to have him in the lineup when they next play Friday in Toronto.

"It was very scary. When that happened I felt very bad," Febles said. "I didn't hear him when he said, `No! No! No!' Sometimes you can't hear. That was scary for the moment, but now he's fine."

The Royals got a run in the first inning when Pose led off with a first-pitch single, Beltran singled to right and Dye hit a run-scoring groundout.

Baltimore tied it in the bottom of the inning when Amaral, getting a rare start, hit a leadoff triple and scored on a sacrifice fly by Mike Bordick.

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