Royals 1, Yankees 0: James Shields tossed 8 1/3 scoreless innings to lift visiting Kansas City to its fourth consecutive victory.

Shields (13-7) allowed three hits and struck out six to avenge an 8-1 beating in New York on Aug. 25 and improve to 10-16 lifetime against the Yankees. Nori Aoki had an RBI single and Wade Davis got the final two outs for his first save as the first-place Royals moved two games ahead of Detroit in the American League Central.

Michael Pineda (3-4) was a hard-luck loser, allowing an unearned run and three hits over seven innings as New York fell 4 1/2 games behind Seattle for the second wild card. It was Kansas City's first 1-0 victory at Yankee Stadium.

Kansas City nicked Pineda for an unearned run in the third when Alcides Escobar hustled into second on a hot shot that third baseball Chase Headley could not handle and scored when Aoki ripped a one-out single to center. Shields set down the first 11 batters before Brett Gardner doubled and Carlos Beltran was hit by a pitch, but he got Brian McCann to pop up to end the fourth inning.

Pineda retired the last 11 batters he faced after giving up Salvador Perez's one-out single in the fourth and Dellin Betances and closer David Robertson followed with a perfect inning apiece. Derek Jeter singled with one out in the ninth to end Shields' night, but Davis struck out Gardner and Beltran to end it.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Yankees 1B Mark Teixeira (0-for-3) is hitless in his last 21 at-bats and 6-for-51 lifetime against Shields, who reached 200 innings and 30 starts for the eighth straight season. ... Betances fanned two in a scoreless inning of relief to give him 124 strikeouts, the second-highest total in a season by a Yankee reliever (Mariano Rivera, 130 in 1996). ... Kansas City officially released veteran LHP Bruce Chen, who had been designated for assignment 10 days ago.