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Royals score eight in the second to roll past Cardinals

Jun 15, 2007 - 5:05 AM KANSAS CITY ,Missouri (Ticker) -- It's either feast or famine for the Kansas City Royals.

One night after being held hitless for nearly six innings, the Royals pounded out 15 hits en route to a 17-8 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the finale of a three-game interleague series on Thursday.

The Royals' offense has come alive in three of the last five games, scoring a total of 45 runs, including a 17-5 triumph against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.

"I wish I knew. We're getting some production from top to bottom," Royals manager Buddy Bell said. "What it seemed like before that one part of the lineup would be productive and the other two-thirds wouldn't and now, everybody's contributing. That adds to confidence. Hopefully, that will continue.

"For us, any win is important. Against the Phillies and the Cardinals, two teams that have a very good chance of getting to the playoffs in the National League, it's a good feeling."

Tony Pena had a career high-tying four hits, Mark Teahen collected a career-best two triples and five RBI and Emil Brown also added three hits for the Royals, who won their third consecutive interleague series.

"We took advantage of some mistakes made by their pitchers," Bell said. "I think a lot of it had to do with us being patient, getting ahead in the count and taking advantage of that."

"Some nights you're facing guys who are going to pitch well and keep the ball in the outside of the plate," Teahen said. "We're not going to produce the runs like we have the past couple of days. It's always fun to win a tight one in the ninth, but I'm not complaining about a blowout win."

After a three-run home run by Chris Duncan in the second off Royals starter Scott Elarton, the Royals took a 9-4 lead by posting eight runs in the bottom half, chasing starting pitcher Kip Wells.

The big blows were a two-run single by Esteban German and a two-run double by Brown.

St. Louis sliced its deficit to 9-6 with two runs in the third, including a two-out single by Duncan, who finished with a season-high four RBI.

But Kansas City added six more runs in the fourth as Alex Gordon hit a two-run blast, David DeJesus laced a two-run double high off the wall in center field and Teahen stroked a two-run triple to left field.

Zack Greinke (4-4) pitched four solid innings of relief to earn the victory, yielding one run on four hits with three strikeouts and one walk.

"Zack came in and did a great job," Bell said. "In that situation, what was required was some damage control. He did a really good job in not worrying about the guys on base but worrying about the guys he needed to face and he did a heck of a job. We would prefer to use him at the end of the game, but the situation dictated otherwise."

"We needed some innings out of the bullpen, so when I went in there I knew I had to stop it and also had to go a long time," Greinke said. "And we scored a lot more runs for me and that made it a lot easier, too."

Both starting pitchers logged the shortest outings of their seasons.

Wells (2-11), the major league leader in losses, allowed six runs in 1 1/3 innings, while Elarton was tagged for six runs and five hits in just two-plus frames.

"Wells struggled and had a tough night," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "I don't think there's an easy way to describe that, so I'm going to say he struggled."

"There was just a lot of not very good things going on," Wells said. I don't even know how to describe it. It wasn't productive. Pitching us into a bind like that is not acceptable."

Slugger Albert Pujols had two hits, including his 16th homer of the season in the seventh and So Taguchi also collected two hits for St. Louis, which suffered its more lopsided lost this season.

Cardinals outfielder Juan Encarnacion extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a single in the seventh inning.