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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus was feeling ill even before Friday nights game against Kansas City, so he told bench coach Gene Lamont in the second inning that he was heading upstairs. He missed having a front-row seat to watch his pitching staffs magic act. Just like Houdini making his greatest escapes, Anibal Sanchez and the Tigers bullpen wiggled out of jams in every inning. Ian Kinsler and Miguel Cabrera drove in a run apiece, and that was just enough to give the AL Central-leading Tigers a 2-1 victory over the second-place Royals. "We really had to fight for this one," Tigers catch Bryan Holaday said. Sanchez (6-3) scattered eight hits without a walk over seven innings, Joba Chamberlain got out of a tense eighth, and Joe Nathan worked around a single and a walk in the ninth for his 19th save -- and give Detroit its fifth straight win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium this season. Nathan got Nori Aoki to ground out on a full-count pitch to end the game. "Obviously we have to play them a lot more," Chamberlain said. "We just have to keep grinding." Salvador Perez drove in the only run for the Royals, who squandered a solid start by Danny Duffy (5-9). He gave up both runs, only one earned, while losing for the fourth time in five starts. "Up against a guy like Sanchez," he said, "you cant make any mistakes." The Royals appeared to be 90 feet from tying it with no outs in the eighth, when Aoki swiped second base and went to third when the throw from Holaday squirted into centre field. While that was going on, though, plate umpire Chad Fairchild was calling batter interference on Lorenzo Cain for stepping into the way of the throw to second. Cain was out and Aoki was forced to make the long, slow trot back to first base. He wound up getting stranded by Chamberlain. "That was a big play," said Lamont, himself a former catcher. "Chad made the right call. Im sure the Royals fans dont think so, but he did make the right call." After the Tigers opened the series with a 16-4 blowout Thursday night, Sanchez and Duffy waged an entertaining pitchers duel. And just like when they met in June, Sanchez was one run better. Duffy surrendered a leadoff double to Austin Jackson and an RBI single to Kinsler in the first inning, and then gave up another run in the third when Cabrera hit a lazy sacrifice fly. Duffy wound up allowing five hits while striking out six without a walk. He departed after hitting the Tigers Nick Castellanos leading off the seventh inning, but Kelvin Herrera -- who hit the first batter he faced -- managed to wiggle out of the jam without any more damage. Meanwhile, Sanchez was churning through the Royals lineup. They scored their only run in the first inning when Eric Hosmer stretched a single into a double and Perez followed with a base hit. Sanchez struck out Billy Butler to end the inning, and then kept Kansas City at bay over the next six -- though none of them was clean. Sanchez worked around a single in the second, a double in the third, a leadoff single in the fourth, and singles in the fifth and sixth innings without another run. His tensest moment came in the seventh, when Mike Moustakas doubled off the wall in centre field, missing a tying homer by a couple of feet. The Royals advanced Moustakas to third with a groundout, but Sanchez induced two more groundouts -- one a magnificent spinning stab by shortstop Eugenio Suarez -- to quietly end the threat. "Same thing we see every time. He was unreal," Moustakas said. "Hes so good at commanding his pitches and mixing speeds with different pitches and different counts. Hes a tough at-bat any time. He commands both sides of the plate with all of his pitches, and he adds and subtracts his fastball. He does whatever he wants." NOTES: Sanchez is 5-2 with a 1.08 ERA in his career against the Royals. ... Tigers DH Victor Martinez (strained left side) missed his fifth straight game. Kinsler replaced him on the AL All-Star roster Friday. ... The Royals were 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position. ... The Royals activated Aoki (strained left groin) from the DL and optioned INF Christian Colon to Triple-A Omaha before the game. ... Tigers RHP Rick Porcello faces Royals RHP James Shields on Saturday. . The club announced Friday that Mauro Biello will be kept on as an assistant to coach Jesse Marsch when the Impact join the MLS in 2012. . -- The Orlando Magic finally are showing the patience in critical moments that coach Jacque Vaughn has been waiting for all season. http://www.authenticmanchestercityshop. ... ty-Jersey/. Tottenham claimed top spot in Group K by winning 2-0 at Tromso after defender Adnan Causevic scored an own goal before Mousa Dembele put the result beyond doubt. Valencia made sure it will finish first in Group A with a 1-0 win at Swansea thanks to an early goal from Dani Parejo. .ca NBA Power Rankings. Winners of 15 straight, with a healthy roster, the Spurs have overtaken the Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder for the number one ranking. .Voegele will next play Anna Schmiedlova of Slovakia, who saved 10 of 16 break points to defeat Annika Beck of Germany 7-6 (6), 6-4.Also, Marina Erakovic of New Zealand defeated eighth-seeded Caroline Garcia of France 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.Actor, police officer and MMA fighter. No one can accuse Sergeant Nick Hein of not living life to the fullest. As the 30-year-old German lightweight himself notes, most of the good stuff -- his role on a hit German TV show and UFC contract -- came in the last 18 months. It really gives me a shiver every time I think about it, he said in a interview. Its a cool time right now. Hein steps into the Octagon for a second time Saturday night when he faces James The Texecutioner Vick on a televised UFC card in Austin, Texas. Former lightweight champion Frankie The Answer Edgar, currently ranked No. 3 among featherweight contenders, faces No. 2 Cub Swanson in the main event at the Frank Erwin Center. Hein (11-1 with one no contest) won his UFC debut in May via unanimous decision over American Drew Dober on a card in Berlin. It was an impressive showing with Hein using his left hook to carve open a cut over Dobers eye and his judo skills to take the American down. He faces a tall task in the unbeaten Vick (6-0), who at six foot three has a seven-inch height advantage on the German. We train for that, Hein said nonchalantly. We have tall Germans too. Hein is a firm believer that things happen for a reason and has plenty of ammo to back it up. He shifted to MMA after his judo career was essentially blocked by having a German world champion in his weight class. He won his role on the popular German sitcom Diese Kaminskis after meeting a scriptwriter in the gym. When it came time to audition last year, he almost missed his opportunity because he neglected to check his voice mail, eventually listening to the message just in time to make it. Perhaps most importantly he met his wife-to-be -- an artist -- in Tokyo while he was training in her native Japan in 2005. I lost her number the first time, he said. I was one and half hours away from Tokyo and Tokyos not the smallest place to find somebody again. He went to the same place one week later and waited. She had the same idea and they found each other. They got married two years later. Hein was 19 when he joined Germanys Federal Police out of school. The force supported amateur sports, allowing Hein to pursue his blossoming judo career. These days Hein patrols the busy train station in downtown Cologne. Its a crazy place, he said with a laugh. After his UFC debut, he recalls making a shoplifting arrest at the station only to see a store employee staring at him. Hein thought he might have food on his face after lunch. Youre the MMA fighter? the employee eventually asked. In a country where mixed martial arts is still struggling to gain acceptance, Hein sees that recognition as a step forward. While its been more than four years since the UFC held its first show in Germany -- UFC 99 in June 2009 in Cologne -- mixed martial arts still has a way to go in Heins home. The sportt is still not allowed on domestic TV so fight fans will have to watch Saturdays card online.dddddddddddd Hein addressed that in May in his post-fight interview in the cage. He took the microphone and, in German, asked the fans if they felt good. Then he asked them to shout U-F-C to show the world that the UFC has a home in Germany. Hein said people may remember that post-fight interaction more than the bout itself. Germany remains split on MMA, he says. The younger generation supports it but the older generation doesnt understand it. And thats usually the generation of your bosses, he said. He started judo at the age of six and went on to win European under-20 and under-23 titles. But his dream of making the Olympics was stymied by the fact that he competed in the same weight class as Ole Bischof, who won gold at the 2008 Games and silver in 2012. He competed better internationally in the time when it counted, said Hein, an Olympic alternate in 2008. Still it was like a setback. I had to accept I couldnt pass him by. He calls what has happened since a fairy-tale. But there were tough times getting there, with Hein calling the end of his judo career a nightmare time. He eventually switched his focus to MMA, a sport that had been in the back of his mind since someone had given him a VHS copy of UFC 1 years before. I thought I could do that too, he recalled. That seed resurfaced in 2009 when a really depressed Hein was at a judo camp in Brazil. He needed a new challenge and decided to find an MMA gym when he went home. The sport captivated him and he started taking more classes, eventually making his pro debut in August 2009. Still a member of the national judo team, he did it in secret. Hein told his coach he had to go to a friends wedding in Italy. He won his fight in Cologne -- moved to a small space after the original venue was cancelled -- and left in the wee hours to take a train to Berlin so he could attend judo training camp the next morning. Nobody knew what happened, he said. Hein won his MMA debut in the first round and said he felt like he had won the heavyweight championship of the world. I was fighting in European (judo) championships, I was fighting in Brazil, in Russia, all over he world, really big competitions, really big organizations. But that (first MMA) fight with 30 people in the room gave me that feeling, he said. Hein took some boxing lessons and learned he had power in his hands. His TV show is about three undertakers who arent the sharpest knives in the drawer. While he has no acting background, Hein said the script grabbed him. I read it and I felt Man, I can do this. Thats me actually. A really dumber version of me. He says he manages to fit everything into the day thanks to staying focused and the support of his wife. But when its time to fight, acting taking a back seat. ' ' '