NEW YORK (AP) - Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run homer to break Lou Gehrig’s American League record for RBIs, and the New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 4-2 Wednesday to finish a three-game sweep.
Michael Pineda (6-2) rebounded from consecutive losses and Brian McCann hit a solo shot for the Yankees, who outscored the AL champions 23-4 in their first home sweep of at least three games against Kansas City since August 2007.
Coming into the series, New York had lost six in a row and 10 of 11.
Chris Young (4-1) gave up both Yankees home runs, and the slumping Royals have dropped four straight for the first time since Aug. 28-31. They’ve managed only five runs during the slide.
Dellin Betances allowed an unearned run in the eighth - he still has not yielded an earned run this year. Andrew Miller pitched a perfect ninth for his 14th save in as many opportunities.
Brett Gardner doubled to start the third, Chase Headley walked and Rodriguez pulled a line drive into the left-field corner that cleared the fence near the 318-foot sign.
With his 665th home run, the three-time MVP increased his career total to 1,995 RBIs. The Yankees said that’s two more than Gehrig gets credit for from the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball’s official statistician.
Records get tricky when it comes to runs batted in, partly because RBIs did not become an official stat until 1920. So while baseball-reference.com lists Gehrig with 1,995 RBIs and Babe Ruth with 2,214, Elias puts A-Rod ahead of both of them and behind only Barry Bonds (1,996) and Hank Aaron (2,297).
Rodriguez’s 11th homer of the season plus a single in the seventh left him 19 hits shy of 3,000.
Mike Moustakas, the second batter of the game, completed a cycle of sorts against Pineda with a long home run into the raised concrete bleachers in right. Back on May 15, Moustakas had a single, double and triple off Pineda as Young won 12-1 in Kansas City.
Pineda struck out Moustakas in his next two at-bats, though - the second time with two runners in scoring position and one out. The right-hander then whiffed Lorenzo Cain with a nasty slider to end the threat.
McCann homered into the second deck in right field leading off the second.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Royals: OF Alex Rios (broken left hand) was scheduled to be the DH for nine innings Wednesday night in his third rehab game with Triple-A Omaha, manager Ned Yost said.
Yankees: RHP Masahiro Tanaka (wrist tendinitis and forearm strain) threw 62 pitches over three innings in his second rehab start for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He gave up three runs and four hits, including a homer, while striking out four and walking two.
UP NEXT
Royals: After a day off Thursday, the Royals play three interleague games against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. RHP Edinson Volquez, who is 7-0 vs. the Cubs, starts the series opener Friday against RHP Jake Arrieta.
Yankees: LHP CC Sabathia (2-6, 5.47 ERA) starts Thursday night at Oakland in the opener of a seven-game West Coast trip. Coming off a dreadful outing vs. Texas, Sabathia is 8-10 with a 4.66 ERA against his hometown team.
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