Kansas City, Mo. ? Zack Greinke’s statistics say he’s been dominant all season. His lack of wins against the American League over the past couple of months tells a different story.

Greinke earned his first victory over an American League club since May 26, Mike Jacobs and Billy Butler each had three hits and drove in three runs and the Kansas City Royals defeated the Oakland Athletics, 12-6, Saturday night.

Greinke was 0-5 and the Royals were winless in his previous nine starts against AL teams before going seven innings and allowing three runs on seven hits for his first victory since June 28 at Pittsburgh. He struck out five and ranks second in the AL with 167. He league-leading ERA rose to 2.43.

“I know that’s all that matters, but I don’t focus a whole lot on wins cause you can’t really control them completely,” Greinke said. “Just like today, I pitched terrible and we won. Winning today really wasn’t me, it was everyone. When we got a couple of runs lead, it makes it a lot easier to pitch, so you can attack guys. You’re just a little more free out there.”

Butler had three doubles and every Royals starter had at least one hit and scored a run. Jacobs and Miguel Olivo hit back-to-back home runs in a four-run fourth.

Greinke gave up all his runs in the second and after that the A’s had just three hits and no runner made it past second base off him over the next five innings.

“I pitched terrible the second inning,” Greinke said. “The rest of the way there were still some line drives hit and it was a solid played game behind me and that helped out.”

Greinke threw 46 pitches in the first two innings.

“We had him where we wanted,” A’s manager Bob Geren said. “His pitch count was way up and we were getting good swings. Then he started hitting his spots. When they went ahead I’m sure it gave him a lot of extra life. When they got him a lot of runs, he just cruised.”

Oakland right-hander Clayton Mortensen (0-1), who was making his first big league start, gave up eight runs on eight hits and three walks in four-plus innings, after striking out five of the first eight Kansas City batters he faced.