Royals rout Phillies

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06/10/2007 - Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mark Grudzielanek homered and finished with five RBI, as the Kansas City Royals pounded the Philadelphia Phillies, 17-5, in the rubber match of a three-game interleague set at Kauffman Stadium.

Tony Pena also went deep and finished with two RBI while David DeJesus scored four times for the Royals, who have won three of their last five.

Jorge De La Rosa got the start and lasted just 3 2/3 innings, allowing three runs on five hits. The offense picked him up, though, and Zack Greinke (3-4) got the win after tossing two scoreless frames.

Jamie Moyer (5-5) was roughed up for six runs on seven hits over 3 2/3 innings and the bullpen was equally poor for Philadelphia, which was coming off a sweep of the Mets.

Ryan Howard hit a two-run homer in a losing effort.

The Royals scored 11 unanswered runs to turn a one-run edge into a 17-5 advantage.

Three of those runs came in the sixth off Ryan Madson. The right-hander loaded the bases before yielding a single to Grudzielanek that scored a pair. Mike Sweeney followed with a run-scoring base hit of his own that upped the lead to 9-5.

Jose Mesa, signed by the Phillies on Saturday, celebrated the return to his old team by relieving Madson and working out of the jam. The Phils' all- time saves leader uncorked a pair of wild pitches in the seventh, though, that allowed two more Kansas City runs to cross the plate.

The Royals then erupted for six runs in the eighth to cap the onslaught. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Emil Brown stepped in and hit a single that scored a pair. Ryan Shealy added an RBI single a batter later before Pena made it 15-5 with a sacrifice fly. Alex Gordon topped the offensive display with a double to center that plated both Shealy and Joey Gathright.

Kansas City took a 1-0 lead in the first courtesy of a Grudzielanek double that plated DeJesus.

Carlos Ruiz followed with a run-scoring double of his own, starting a back- and-forth pattern that typified the early portion of the contest.

Pena put the Royals back in front in the second with his first homer of the season, a two-out solo blast to left. Shane Victorino countered with a leadoff homer in the third to knot it at 2-2.

Grudzielanek belted a two-run homer in the home-half of the third to stake the home team to a two-run lead. Jimmy Rollins, though, promptly sliced that lead in half with a double in the fourth that brought in Abraham Nunez.

DeJesus one-upped Rollins in the bottom of the fourth with a two-run double, pushing the Royals lead to 6-3.

The Phillies struck right back in the fifth thanks to Howard's two-run homer to right, bringing in Aaron Rowand to trim the lead to one.

Game Notes

De La Rosa is winless in five starts -- three losses and two no-decisions -- since an 11-1 defeat of the Chicago White Sox on May 13...Kansas City outhit the Phils 14-9...Attendance for the 1980 World Series rematch was 16,034...Phillies reliever Geoff Geary allowed five runs -- two earned -- in just one-third of an inning.

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NCAA Football Betting : USC's reward: Top spot in Top 25

NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.

No. 1 always seems to fit USC.

Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.

Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.

Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.

"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."

Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.

"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."

The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.

"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."

Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.

"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"

USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.

"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."

While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.

As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.

But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.

Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.

The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.

The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.

The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.

No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.

Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.

Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.

Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.

The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.

South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.

The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.

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