"If you see right now, I was pulling the ball too much," he said. "When I do that, I'm pulling off the ball, opening my hips too soon.

"I've got my routine when that happens. I know what I have to do to stay on top of the ball. ... If you get desperate, it's over. You have to stay confident. Believe in yourself."

Angels manager Mike Scioscia has stayed confident in Abreu, keeping him in the lineup for all but two games since the end of July. When Scioscia shuffled his lineup looking to jump-start the offense, he only moved Abreu from second to third, leaving other options like Torii Hunter and Kendry Morales lower in the lineup.

"He's been so consistent for so long. You're going to have the occasional down times. We're just going through one right now," Scioscia said. "He's still getting on base. He's still working counts. He's still bringing a lot to our offense. Maybe the production we're talking about from him might be down.

"But, I'll tell you what, of all the guys we're talking about (with the Angels' offense sputtering recently), Bobby has hit into more hard outs than anyone. He hasn't been squaring balls up the way he had been. But it's nothing to overreact to."

ANGELS 7, ROYALS 2: The Angels' offense woke up early against Royals RHP Luke Hochevar on Sunday but then went back to sleep. The Angels had scored a total of five runs in their previous 41 innings before nearly matching that with a four-run second inning against Hochevar. They got an RBI double by Mike Napoli, RBI triple by Erick Aybar and RBI singles by Howie Kendrick and Bobby Abreu. They added three more runs in the fourth, chasing Hochevar but managed just two more hits in 5 1/3 innings against a pair of Royals relievers making their big-league debuts (Dusty Hughes and Victor Marte).