St. Petersburg, Fla. ? Calvin Pickering had the perfect solution after tweaking his left hamstring during a key at-bat.

He homered on the next pitch.

Pickering hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning Monday night to help the Kansas City Royals defeat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 6-3.

“When I took the swing, it cramped up,” Pickering said. “On the next pitch, I hit the ball, but I wasn’t even worrying about where the ball was going. I didn’t even know where it was at. Then I looked up and saw everybody running. I’m happy with the result.”

Pickering’s opposite-field drive off Jorge Sosa (4-5) put the Royals up 5-3. He was booed by some fans unaware of the injury as he trotted slowly around the bases.

Brian Anderson (5-11) allowed three runs and seven hits over 72/3 innings to win his third straight decision. Shawn Camp got the final out in the eighth, and Jeremy Affeldt pitched the ninth for his 12th save in 15 opportunities.

“I had a pretty good sinker tonight,” Anderson said. “Just worked the extremes of the plate, in and out, and changed speeds.”

Aubrey Huff and Carl Crawford homered for Tampa Bay, which has lost 17 of 21.

David DeJesus made it 6-3 in the ninth inning when he hit a double and scored on a two-base throwing error. Crawford fielded the ball off the left-field wall and attempted a throw to second base, but the ball squirted out of his hand into center field. DeJesus came all the way around, beating Rocco Baldelli’s throw to the plate.

“You can say it slipped … I don’t know what to say,” Crawford said. “You might not never see me do that again … hopefully.”

Crawford has made just two errors in 140 games this year.

“We saw a little bit of everything,” Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella said. “It wasn’t a very good game.”