Chavez lifts A's past Royals.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Laurence Miedema

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Eric Chavez's left hand, which was bruised May 10, has been fine for weeks. But the A's third baseman's confidence is still on the mend.

One day after asking out of the lineup because he was worried he was hurting the team, Chavez provided a huge jolt Sunday in a 6-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals with a two-run home run in the third inning.

But instead of being satisfied that his homer helped prevent the A's from falling further behind A.L. West-leading Seattle, Chavez was disgusted with himself.

Chavez's homer gave the A's a 4-3 lead and a huge momentum shift after the Royals had wiped out Eric Byrnes' leadoff homer with a three-run rally against Barry Zito in the bottom of the first. But Chavez agonized about his at-bat in the eighth inning. With the score 4-4, he failed to drive in the go-ahead run by grounding out to second base.

"Everybody was doing their job," Chavez said. "Mine was the easiest to do and I didn't get it done. That is what's frustrating."

Chavez would have been more upset if Ramon Hernandez hadn't followed with a run-scoring single. Two batters later, Terrence Long added an RBI single to make it 6-4.