"It isn't hard to identify what kept Gil Meche and the Royals in a tailspin Saturday night in their 3-2 loss to the Texas Rangers.

It wasn't Ian Kinsler's two-out RBI single in the eighth inning. That merely drove in the winning run. The real problems were seven walks by Meche, which undercut an otherwise strong performance, and an increasingly feeble attack.

Start with the walks. All three Texas runs were scored by batters who walked.

"It's terrible," Meche agreed. "Obviously, I pitched better as far as my numbers have been. But seven walks is not good, especially against a team like this. I just couldn't make up for the walks."

Not for lack of effort. Meche threw 128 pitches - matching Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez for the most this season by any pitcher in either league - and did so after laboring through a 27-pitch first inning.

"To be able to throw that many pitches and still have good stuff at the end (is encouraging)," Meche said. "It's just that location got lost a little bit in the eighth inning. Walks killed us today."

The result is the Royals are 11-20 after losing for the sixth time in seven games, and Meche is 0-4 despite allowing only six hits while throwing the seventh complete game of his career.

"It's unfortunate," manager Trey Hillman said. "A play here or a play there, or a base-hit here or a base-hit there…frustrating."

That points to a growing problem of diminishing run production. The Royals generated 10 hits but scored fewer than three runs for the seventh time in their last 12 games. They stranded nine runners and were just one for 13 with runners in scoring position.

"It's disappointing," said Mitch Maier, who delivered that lone hit with a runner in scoring position. "You're not going to win a lot of games scoring one or two runs a game.""