KANSAS CITY (AP) — Bruce Chen pitched eight strong innings, Wilson Betemit and Alex Gordon drove in two runs apiece and the Kansas City Royals beat the Seattle Mariners 5-1 in a rain-shortened game on Thursday night.
The game was called after a delay of 47 minutes in the bottom of the eighth.
Chen (2-0) allowed six hits and walked one in his fourth career complete game and second in his last four starts dating to his final game last year. He improved to 4-0 against the Mariners and has won his last six decisions overall to even his career record at 50-50.
The left-hander had tossed 13 consecutive scoreless innings before Adam Kennedy’s sacrifice fly drove in an unearned run in the eighth.
Gordon hit a two-run double off Doug Fister (0-3) in the third inning and scored on Billy Butler’s single for a 3-0 lead. Betemit homered in the fourth and had a sacrifice fly in the sixth in front of a crowd of 8,811 — lower than Kansas City’s smallest attendance at any game in 2010.
In Fister’s three starts this season covering 18 2-3 innings, the Mariners have scored two runs. They have four or fewer runs in 10 of their last 11 games.
Fister yielded eight hits in seven innings against Kansas City, finishing with five strikeouts and a walk.
Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki singled in the third and fifth, going 2 for 4 to match George Brett’s Kauffman Stadium record of nine consecutive multihit games. He’s hit safely in 15 straight games in Kauffman.
Alcides Escobar and Melky Cabrera singled in the third ahead of Gordon’s double. Cabrera had two hits and has at least one hit in eight of the last nine games.
Betemit connected with one out in the fourth, driving a 1-1 pitch over the wall in left for his first homer. His fly ball to left in the sixth scored Kila Ka’aihue, who reached on a one-out single and went to third on Jeff Francoeur’s base hit.
Chone Figgins doubled in the eighth and went to third when Milton Bradley reached on first baseman Ka’aihue’s error. Kennedy then hit a fly ball to center for Seattle’s only run.


NOTES —Mariners CF Frankin Gutierrez will begin a rehab assignment on Friday at Single-A High Desert. He’s been out since March 30 with a stomach ailment. ... Cabrera made a terrific catch in center field on Justin Smoak’s deep fly ball. ... Brett had nine straight multihit games in Kauffman Stadium from May 1-28, 1979, when it was still called Royals Stadium.