Visitor: St. Louis Cardinals

Home: Kansas City Royals

Date: June 27, 2010

Scoring:

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E

STL 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3 4 1

KC 0 3 2 2 0 0 0 3 x 10 15 0

Visitor playmakers:

1B Albert Pujols, CF Colby Rasmus

Home playmakers:

P Bruce Chen, 3B Wilson Betemit, C Jason Kendall, CF David DeJesus, RF Jose Guillen

Network: FS Kansas City

Announcers: Ryan Lefebvre, Frank White

Pregame: Yes

Postgame: Yes

Commercials: Yes

Grade: 9.5/10

Notes: Who would have figured, with the way this game began, that left-hander Bruce Chen and the Royals would wind up 10-3 winners over the Cardinals? Yet that's what happened on Sunday and Kansas City claimed the series victory over St. Louis, two games to one, in this year's I-70 Interleague intrastate fracas at Kauffman Stadium. Even Chen, matched against Cardinals rookie whiz Jaime Garcia, who was 7-3 with a 1.79 ERA coming into the game, was surprised.

Chen began the first inning by loading the bases on a hit batter, a single and a walk. But the Cardinals got just one run out of it, on Matt Holliday's sacrifice fly. It took Chen 34 pitches and a visit from Yost, but he wiggled out of it.

After that, Chen gave up nothing more until Albert Pujols awakened from his series-long slumber and knocked a solo home run over the left-field fence, his 16th, in the fifth inning to the delight of Cardinals fans in the crowd of 32,938.

The Chen-Garcia matchup reminded Yost of last Wednesday at Washington, where Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg was pitted against Royals veteran Brian Bannister. It was Bannister who emerged victorious. Garcia, also a left-hander, retired the first five batters and hit a wild streak -- two straight walks. Wilson Betemit, off the bench for a rare start, belted a three-run homer to right field.

Three batters and three hits into the third inning, La Russa excused Garcia from the game. It was the rookie's shortest outing in his 15 starts.

Nothing like the long ball to stir things up. Not that the Royals had known about that lately. Betemit's blast ended the Royals' home-run drought at 69 innings and seven games or since Billy Butler homered at Atlanta on June 18. They hadn't gone that long between homers since 71 innings three years ago, June 18-26, 2007. For Betemit, it was his third homer in just 18 at-bats. He also singled, giving him multihit games in three of his four starts.

Before the 88-degree afternoon was over, the Royals would have more contributors. Jason Kendall got four RBIs on two doubles, one that caught the shallow-playing center fielder Colby Rasmus by surprise. David DeJesus had three singles and two RBIs and was 6-for-13 in the series.

Chen regained his equilibrium after escaping his self-induced two-walk dilemma in the second inning when Pujols flied out to deep center.

"As soon as I hit that one, I knew it was too high to get out," Pujols said. "He made a good pitch down and away and I went with it. I wish it would have gone out, but it didn't."

Chen might have had further inspiration in the next inning.

"I think Bruce looked down there in the third inning and saw [Kanekoa] Texeira warming up and he realized that, 'Hey, I better get my act together here or I'm not going to be around to enjoy it,'" Yost said. "And he got it done."

Relievers Kyle Farnsworth, Robinson Tejeda and Blake Wood finished up with just one blemish. The Cardinals' Colby Rasmus crushed a Wood pitch for a 429-foot ride high over the right-field bullpen in the ninth. Rasmus, like Pujols, has 16 homers.

This was the only series between the Missouri rivals this year. In 2009 a series was played in both cities and the Cardinals dominated, 5-1, and swept the three-game series in Kansas City. So this was a pleasant turnaround for the Royals.

"They're one of the best teams in the National League and for us to win two of three is big," Chen said.

Especially after it looked as if Chen would be lucky to get out of the first inning.

Running time: 4:03 (3 DVDs)