*Photo from AP News*
Another in state rivalry is getting interesting. Victor Scott II drove in a pair of runs, Willson Contreras homered twice, and the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Kansas City Royals with an 8-5 victory Friday night in Kansas City.
The Cardinals picked up their 3rd win in 4 games with the series opening win against their in state rival, moving to 60-57 on the season. Contreras, who had been hitting .179 with 16 strikeouts in his last 15 games, woke up and homered twice, racking up 10 total bases in the win.
St. Louis starting pitcher Miles Mikolas said "Contreras is a big part of our offense, and when he turns it on, I don’t know if there’s a lot of guys out here that can hit the ball harder than he does. It’s something special to watch, and he’s a big part of the offense, that’s for sure."
Contreras gave the Cardinals a 2-0 lead in the first inning, hitting his 14th home run of the season. Alec Burleson added his 20th homer of the year in the top of the 3rd inning, upping the lead to 3-0. In the bottom of the inning, the Royals tied it 3-3 on RBI singles by Michael Massey and Salvador Perez plus an RBI triple by Kyle Isbel.
Maikel Garcia hit an RBI double and scored on a sac fly in the 4th inning for the Royals, giving them a 5-3 lead. In the 6th, Paul Goldschmidt scored on a groundout to cut the deficit to 5-4. Scott II drove in two runs in the 8th with a double, putting the Cardinals ahead 6-5. Contreras made it an 8-5 game in the 9th with a two run home run to left field.
Burleson said of Contreras' two homer game "He’s got power. He takes really good at-bats. We needed him. Obviously, he got hurt earlier, it would have been nice to have him, but I think we put ourselves in a position where we were able to kind of stay afloat without him. And now he’s here, and he’s been tremendous."
Mikolas lasted 4 innings in his start for the Cardinals, allowing all 5 Royals runs. Matthew Liberatore added 3 scoreless innings to get credit for the win, his 3rd. Andrew Kittredge added a scoreless 8th inning and Ryan Helsley got his 37th save of the season in the 9th.
Michael Lorenzen allowed 3 runs in 4 1/3 innings in his start for the Royals. Sam Long allowed a run in 1 2/3 innings before Lucas Erceg pitched a scoreless 7th. Will Smith got one out in the 8th and allowed a few runners that Chris Stratton let score. Angel Zerpa and James McArthur pitched the 9th.
Stratton said of allowing the two run double by Scott in the 8th "I was disappointed in myself tonight, not being able to come through for the guys. As a reliever, if you can keep the runners you inherit off the board, that’s the best feeling in the world. The fact that I gave up Will’s runners and we end up losing the game, it’s just all-encompassing. Disappointing."
The teams wrap up the short two game series Saturday night. The Cardinals will try to win both games behind starting pitcher Andre Pallante, while Michael Wacha takes the mound for the Royals as they try to split the set.
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