Kansas City, Mo. ? Joe Torre was left speechless by the New York Yankees’ latest embarrassing loss.

Two weeks ago, when Cleveland shocked the top team in the AL with a 22-0 clobbering, the Yankees manager called his players to a meeting.

But after the Kansas City Royals scored 10 runs in the fifth inning of a 17-8 rout Monday night, Torre decided just to let it go.

“I don’t know what I would say to them,” Torre said. “We didn’t pitch very well. We know we can score runs, but in order to win you need to pitch. It was not a good day.”

John Buck hit a three-run homer, and Angel Berroa had two hits and scored twice in the fifth inning.

The Royals sent 15 men to the plate against four pitchers in the biggest inning against the Yankees since Boston scored 11 in a 13-7 victory on May 31, 1998.

It was the second double-digit inning in a week for the Royals, the AL’s losingest team. They scored 11 in the third inning of a 26-5 victory Thursday over the Detroit Tigers.

Monday, Kansas City scored on a walk, a balk, two wild pitches, a home run and three singles and dropped New York’s lead to three games in the AL East over idle Boston.

While the Yankees go for a championship, the Royals are nearing the end of a miserable season — concentrating on not breaking the franchise record of 100 losses.

“Every time a team is in first place, they don’t want to play a last-place team because the last-place team wants to show they belong in the big leagues,” Royals manager Tony Pena said. “They have nothing to lose.”

Yankees manager Joe Torre, left, leaves catcher Jorge Posada (20) and pitcher Tanyon Sturtze on the mound after a fifth-inning pitching change. Kansas City scored 10 runs in the inning and routed New York, 17-8, Monday in Kansas City, Mo.

Berroa wound up with five hits and scored five runs, and Buck also had a single and two doubles and a career-best five RBIs for the Royals, who had lost six in a row to the Yankees and beaten them only twice in their last 10 meetings at home.

Brian Anderson (4-11) went six innings and gave up nine hits and three runs.

Even after taking a 12-3 lead, the Royals kept coming, scoring five in the seventh.

“Even after that inning, you felt like it’s a close game, being the Yankees, that they have the potential to come back with that lineup,” Buck said.

The game began as though the Yankees would do the blowing out. But several hard-hit balls in the first three innings produced only two runs.

“We hit balls as hard as we’ve hit them all year,” shortstop Alex Rodriguez said. A team like this, you hit them hard over the head maybe they’ll give up and we can put them away early.”

Brad Halsey (1-3), making his second start since being recalled from Triple-A Columbus on Sept. 5, started the fifth by giving up a walk and a bunt single. Reliever Tanyon Sturtze then gave up an infield single that loaded the bases.

After that, Ken Harvey drew a bases-loaded walk, Berroa scored on Sturtze’s wild pitch and Abraham Nunez scored when Sturtze was charged with a balk, making it 5-3.

After Matt Stairs was walked intentionally, Buck hit an 0-2 pitch for a three-run homer.