White Sox pound out 17 hits, rout Royals 11-2

White Sox batter Royals 11-2

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jermaine Dye’s first-inning homer ignited a 17-hit attack and the Chicago White Sox trounced the reeling Kansas City Royals 11-2 on Friday night.

Everyone in Chicago’s starting lineup had at least one hit and scored at least one run. Everybody drove in a run except Brian Anderson and Jim Thome — who has 1,514 career RBIs.

Alexei Ramirez, A.J. Pierzynski and Josh Fields each had three hits. Paul Konerko, Ramirez, Dye and Fields each had two RBIs.

Clayton Richard (2-0) went seven innings for his second straight victory. He gave up six hits, including Billy Butler’s two-run homer, walked only one and struck out seven in his 12th major league start.

Brian Bannister (4-2), who had won six of eight decisions dating to last September, had his worst outing of the year while losing his fourth straight to the White Sox. The right-hander gave up seven runs on nine hits in five innings plus two batters, starting with Dye’s solo homer in the first.

The first five batters scored for Chicago in the sixth, starting with Anderson, who doubled and came home when Chris Getz’s RBI single chased Bannister.

Sidney Ponson then gave up singles to Fields, Scott Podsednik and Ramirez before retiring Dye on a run-scoring grounder that made it 9-0. He then walked Thome and gave up an RBI single to Konerko ahead of Pierzynski’s RBI double.

After Richard yielded the homer to Butler in the sixth, the 25-year-old left-hander struck out the side in the seventh as Chicago won for the seventh time in 10 games.

Butler, Mark Teahen and Alberto Callaspo each had two hits for Kansas City, which lost for the 14th time in 19 games and dropped two games below .500 for the first time all season.

Ponson got one out while allowing four hits and four runs.