After serving up Matt Holliday's two-run shot in the first, Danny Duffy settled in to go eight innings while striking out eight without a walk, sending Kansas City to a 6-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the opener of a four-game, two-city series between cross-state rivals.
Kendrys Morales went 4 for 4 and drove in two runs, and Eric Hosmer also had a pair of RBIs as the Royals roughed up Adam Wainwright (6-5) to snap a four-game losing streak to the Cardinals.
The Royals scored all their runs with two outs.
Kansas City pulled ahead for good in the second, stringing together five singles and a double while batting through the order. Lorenzo Cain provided the lead with a sharp single up the middle, Hosmer extended it with his bounding double down the right-field line, and Salvador Perez added an RBI single to make it 6-2.
Wainwright began making better pitches eventually, retiring 10 of his final 11 batters. But the damage had been done, and he was pulled after five innings and 102 pitches.
Yordano Ventura (6-4) returns from an eight-game suspension stemming from a brawl in Baltimore to face Cardinals RHP Michael Wacha (3-7) on Tuesday night. Wacha won for the first time in nearly two months his last time out against the Cubs.
