"Milton Bradley drew the eighth inning walk that forced home the game's decisive run and engaged in enough theatrics with the crowd to provide a week's worth of entertainment. The inning would have been over had Royals reliever Robinson Tejeda not deflected what looked to be an inning-ending double-play chopper by Jose Lopez.

But hey, every team needs a bit of luck. The M's had some tonight, finally.

"That's the break we've been searching for,'' Bradley said. "It's one of those things that usually happens to us, but it's what we've been looking for.''

Mark Lowe closed out the eighth and David Aardsma the game, getting a double-play grounder after yielding a one-out single in the ninth.

But let's throw it back to Bradley. He was a ball of energy out there tonight, playing to -- and sometimes against -- the crowd. This was the "bad guy" playing a role. It wasn't as mean-spirited as the one-finger salute in Texas, More like a guy who liked being the villain and seemed to feed off it.

"You're supposed to get booed on the road,'' Bradley said. "That's like a badge of honor. If I've got a whole crowd of people swaying, moving with my every movement, following me all over, that's when I've got control out there. I feel like I'm invincible. There's nothing I can't do out there.''

And there wasn't much he failed to do.

Bradley had two hits, broke up a double-play with a hard slide, made a nice running catch at the wall, a couple more up the left field line and took a ball off the side of his head (it appeared) on one play. He got the crowd chanting his name -- in less than flattering fashion -- gave them a mock salute with his helmet after the double play slide, seemed to pause in posing fashion after some of the catches (a sure way to generate boos) and also faked tossing the ball into the stands."