Royals-Indians: Low-Flying Seagull Gives Tribe Series

(Photo by G. Newman Lowrance/Getty Images)

The Cleveland Indians defeated the Kansas City Royals  4-3 in ten innings on Thursday night at Progressive Field.

The Indians were down much of the game due to the outstanding effort from Royals' starter Zack Greinke, who went 7 1/3 innings and gave up three earned runs. Despite this great effort, however, his ERA rose to 1.72 on the season, previously being 1.55.

Jeremy Sowers went five innings for Cleveland, giving up six hits and two earned runs, lowering his season ERA to 5.10.

Greg Aquino came in and did a wonderful job in relief for the Tribe, giving up one earned run and two hits in his three innings of relief.

The Indians drew first blood in the third inning when Victor Martinez lined a two-out Greinke fastball to center, scoring Luis Valbuena, making it 1-0 Indians.

The Royals were able to get started in the fifth inning. David DeJesus had the first RBI of the game for Kansas City, driving in Tony Pena, Jr. on a double to deep center. Billy Butler was able to get DeJesus home later in the inning on an RBI ground-out to short, giving the Royals a 2-1 advantage.

Miguel Olivo drove in and scored the only run off of reliever Greg Aquino in the eighth inning, hitting a solo home run to left field that made it 3-1 Royals.

The Indians, however, were not done.

They were able to rally in the bottom half of the inning to tie the ball game. Shin-Soo Choo grounded a double play ball with one away in the inning that tuned into disaster for K.C. Tony Pena, Jr. threw the ball away trying to turn the second half of the double play, allowing the inning to continue and Mark DeRosa to score, making it 3-2 Royals.

That brought up Jhonny Peralta, who promptly drove a deep fly ball off of the left field wall, scoring Choo and tieing the game at three a piece.

In the tenth inning, DeRosa and Martinez were able to reach to lead off the inning, bringing up Shin-Soo Choo.

Choo hit a line drive single up the middle that went right into a flock of seagulls that had congregated in shallow center field. As Coco Crisp went to field the single and try to throw out Mark DeRosa, the seagulls scattered, and one of them was hit on the wing, deflecting the ball past Crisp, and propelling the Indians to a comeback win to take the series.

An exciting end to this series leads into a big interleague match-up for Cleveland. They play host to the St. Louis Cardinals this weekend in Cleveland, and will be hosting ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball on Sunday night at 8:05 ET.

Game one of the series is scheduled for Friday night at 7:05, and the probables are Joel Pinero (5-6) for St. Louis and Tomo Ohka (0-0) for Cleveland.

Look for an exciting series to heat up this weekend, as the Indians are still chasing after first place Detroit.

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