By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The St. Louis Cardinals spoiled the Kansas City Royals celebration of the 1985 World Series winning team, opening up the I-70 series at Kauffman Stadium with a dominating 10-3 win on Friday night.
The Cardinals opened the scoring in the second inning after Willson Contreras scored on a wild pitch from Royals starter Cole Ragans, then extended their lead in the fourth inning, Contreras hitting his second double of the game and driving in Brendan Donovan, before scoring in the next at bat as Iván Herrera singled.
Kansas City scored a run in the bottom half of the fourth, Vinnie Pasquantino hitting his seventh home run of the season, and added another in the bottom of the fifth as Kyle Isbel tripled and later scored on a balk from pitcher Andre Pallante, but in the sixth inning St. Louis pulled away scoring four runs.
Back to back singles from Masyn Winn and Donovan opened the inning. Following Winn's single Ragans exited the game with a trainer, being replaced by John Schreiber. Herrera doubled later in the inning, driving in Winn, Donovan, and Contreras who had reached first on a fielding error by Jonathan India. Herrera scored in the next at bat on a single from Pedro Pagés that pushed St. Louis's lead to 7-2.
The Cardinals scored another run in the top of the eighth, Jordan Walker singling home Herrera, and the Royals answered in the bottom half of the inning with Salvador Perez singling home Bobby Witt Jr after he hit a triple, St. Louis though added the final two runs in the ninth with Donovan singling home Lars Nootbaar and a Nolan Arenado sacrifice fly scoring Winn.
Ragans took the loss, falling to 2-3 on the season, pitching five innings and giving up four runs on five hits, striking out seven. Pallante improved to 4-2 with the win, pitching seven innings and giving up two runs on seven hits, striking out four. Herrera led the way at the plate for the Cardinals, going 3-4 with four RBI's. Witt Jr and Maikel Garcia each had two hits for Kansas City,
The Royals are skipping Seth Lugo's turn in the rotation on Saturday as last season’s American League Cy Young Award runner-up deals with inflammation in his right middle finger. Instead, Kansas City will “most likely” call up No. 5 prospect, St. Joseph's Noah Cameron to make his second big league start, manager Matt Quatraro announced.
In Cameron’s Major League debut on April 30, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field, tossing 6 1/3 scoreless frames with three strikeouts. It was an issue that popped up for Lugo in his previous outing on Sunday against the Red Sox. The hope for now is that Lugo will miss just one start -- similar to how Cameron filled in for Cole Ragans for a spot start -- with Cameron once again serving as valuable starting depth.
Cameron will be countered by Miles Mikolas who starts for St. Louis. Mikolas has been on a roll as of late, giving up just four runs over 21.2 innings and striking out 12 in his last four starts.
First pitch tomorrow will be at 6:10pm. Royals pregame coverage on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM) will begin at 5:30. Cardinals pregame coverage will be joined at 6 on KY 102 (102.5 FM).