KANSAS CITY, Mo. — St. Louis Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny is under no illusions that his team will always be able to put up the kind of offense it has the first two games of its three-game series against Kansas City.
Might as well take advantage of it while it’s happening, though.
Matt Holliday had four hits and drove in two runs, Allen Craig belted a two-run home run and finished with three RBI and Adam Wainwright enjoyed all that run support while shutting down the Royals in an 8-2 victory on Saturday.
“That’s the way it’s meant to be,” Matheny said. “We know this isn’t the kind of offense you produce every night, but it gives you a lot of confidence.”
The Cardinals came into the series struggling on offense, but they’ve broken out of it in style while taking the first two games. They matched a season-high 17 hits Friday night en route to an 11-4 victory, and were nearly as proficient at the plate Saturday.
“When you have a lineup like we have, just keep us in the game,” said Wainwright (6-7), who allowed 2 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks over 7 innings.
“That was a pretty dominant outing,” Matheny said of Wainwright. “You can tellhe’s in a good place.”
The Cardinals likely feel like they’re in a good place in Kansas City, where they improved to 26-15 in franchise history and took a 3-2 lead in the season series.
“Everyone’s wo rking their tail off,” Royals Manager Ned Yost said. “They’re doing what they need to do in terms of their work and preparation. They just need to take it to the field.”
St. Louis started its offensive onslaught in the third inning against Luis Mendoza (2-4), when Rafael Furcal worked a two-out walk andback-to-back singles by Jon Jay and Holliday made it 1-0. Mendoza eventually escaped the jam, but everything fell apart in the fifth.
Daniel Descalso started a run of five consecutive singles in the fifth for St. Louis, and RBI hits by Jay and Holliday knocked Mendoza from the game. Kelvin Herrera came in and gave up another RBI single to Carlos Beltran, giving the Cardinals 4-0 lead.
Furcal added another run with a single in the sixth, and even though Kansas City got two back in the bottomhalf on Alex Gordon’s runscoring triple and Yuniesky Betancourt’s RBI groundout, St. Louis wasted little time in matching it with two more runs in the seventh inning.
That’s when Holliday doubled off reliever Greg Holland, and Craig belted a full-count pitch over the bullpen in left field for his ninth home run this season.
“They were pitching me tough, a lot of sliders and fastballs off the plate,” Craig said. “I just tried to put the barrel of the bat on it, and when you do that good things happen.”
Sports, Pages 25 on 06/24/2012