KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The Royals finally solved the mystery of Josh Tomlin on the night when Jason Vargas pitched one of his best games in a Royals uniform.
Last year and two starts into this season, Tomlin had mastered the Royals, collecting four victories including a complete game last weekend.
But the Royals opened the weekend series against the Indians on Friday with a 4-0 victory by getting to Tomlin in the late innings.
The outcome made a winner of Vargas, who tossed the seventh shutout of his career, and second in a Royals uniform. He was at 91 pitches after eight innings, and after the Royals scored two runs in the eighth, Vargas was good to go for the ninth.
Vargas, who improved to 7-3, missed most of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery and has come back strong this season with a 2.08 ERA.
He was at his best with runners on base. Vargas induced four double plays, helping him avoid trouble all evening.
Vargas and Tomlin matched zeroes through five innings, when the Royals scratched a run on the strength of Lorenzo Cain's legs and replay official Bill Duplissea.
With one out in the sixth, Alcides Escobar roped a single up the middle, the Royals' first hit and base runner since the second inning.
Escobar took second when Tomlin was charged with a wild pitch on a ball in the dirt and took third when Mike Moustakas hit a come-backer that Tomlin knocked down.
Cain took a big cut but toppled the ball a few feet on the grass. Tomlin bounced and fired a strike with first base umpire Ed Hickox raising his arm. Out!
But Duplissea immediately went to work, and the Royals issued a challenge. The call was overturned and the Royals had a 1-0 lead.
The Royals stretched the lead one inning later. Jorge Bonifacio, who hit a long home run off Tomlin last weekend in Cleveland, appeared to have another one.
But this one hit the padding atop the left-field wall and bounced up and back into the field. Bonifacio had a one-out double. He moved to third on Brandon Moss' deep fly to right-center, and that brought up Whit Merrifield, who had been hitless in his first two plate appearances while trying to extend his 16-game hitting streak.
Merrifield did just that. He belted a double to the wall in left-center, scoring Bonifacio, and his 17-game streak is the longest active in baseball.
There was more insurance to come. Moustakas hammered his 14th home run of the season with one out in the eighth, a solo shot to right-center. That was Tomlin's final pitch. But the Royals weren't finished.
Cain continued the eighth with a single and scored from first when Eric Hosmer belted a double off the wall in left.
Vargas and Tomlin locking into a duel came as no surprise, based on recent results in the series.
Tomlin has mastered the Royals. In 16 innings before Friday, he had surrendered two runs. His complete game was the fifth of his eight-year career in a 10-1 victory.
This is no recent phenomenon either. Tomlin was 10-4 against the Royals before Friday.
"He keeps the ball off the barrel and throws a lot of strikes," the Royals' Moss said before the game. "He walks nobody."
Royals manager Ned Yost thinks so much of Tomlin, he nearly made him an All-Star for the first time last year.
But Vargas matched Tomlin's zeroes with the help of his defense.
The four double plays occurred in the first six innings, the sharpest started by shortstop Escobar in the fourth inning.
Michael Brantley led off with a single. Carlos Santana hit a sizzling one-hopper to Escobar's right. He picked it and started the double play.
Vargas entered the game having made two starts against the Indians this season. He left the May 6 encounter after six innings leading 1-0, a game the Royals lost.
Last weekend in Cleveland, Vargas worked 52/3 innings and took the victory. Friday, he was even better, perhaps his best a member of the Royals.
