Kansas City, Mo. ? The Royals are making a habit of hitting late home runs.

A night after Alex Gordon hit a game-ending, three-run homer, Billy Butler hit a two-run shot in the eighth inning Saturday to help lift the Kansas City Royals to a 4-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.

“Ones like that don’t happen that often and we do it back-to-back nights,” Butler said. “In their perspective, it’s got to be tough because they played well up until the last couple of innings. They played well enough to win.”

After Jason Kendall singled in the eighth, Butler sent a drive over the Orioles bullpen in left field for his 12th homer. It came on a 2-2 pitch from David Hernandez (5-8).

“I wasn’t sitting on it,” Butler said. “He had been working me away. He threw me a fastball away the pitch before that I was able to foul it off. I definitely wasn’t looking in. I was trying to hit the ball the other way and I just caught it out front.”

Butler’s home run allowed Zack Greinke (7-10) to pick up the victory. Greinke held the Orioles to three runs on seven hits in eight innings. He struck out five and walked three. Greinke, the 2009 American League Cy Young Award winner, is 5-2 in his past seven starts. The Royals turned four double plays behind Greinke.

“I started off throwing a bunch of off-speed and was going to switch to more fastballs later in the game, but I just never really got to it,” Greinke said. “My command wasn’t that great, but I was able to keep them off-balance a little bit. You can get away with location a little more if you’re not pumping the same velocity in there.”

Orioles starter Brad Bergesen, who is 0-7 with four no-decisions since a victory May 12 over Seattle, left with a 3-2 lead after seven innings. He allowed five hits.

Hernandez, however, failed to hold the lead.

“I just outthought myself,” Hernandez said of the home run pitch. “For some reason, I thought I had to come inside and I didn’t get it far enough in. If I’m going to come in right there, I’ve got to knock him down or hit him, one of the two, because I can’t leave the ball middle in right there, because that’s exactly what he (Butler) does with it.”

It was exactly a year ago, Butler hit a line drive that struck Bergesen in the left shin, causing a deep contusion that ended his season.