Kansas City, MO (Sports Network) - Jason Kendall drove in four runs, and Wilson Betemit hit a three-run homer, as Kansas City took the finale of a three-game series with the Cardinals, 10-3, at Kauffman Stadium.
Kendall went 3-for-5 and scored twice, David DeJesus collected three hits and knocked in two and Jose Guillen extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a 2-for-3 effort while driving in a run.
Betemit ended with two of the Royals' 15 hits and scored two runs. Bruce Chen (4-2) went five innings in the start and gave up two runs on only two hits with four walks.
St. Louis' Jaime Garcia (7-4) had his worst outing of the season, lasting just two-plus innings and giving up five runs on four hits and two walks.
Albert Pujols and Colby Rasmus each slugged home run No. 16 of the season for St. Louis, which dropped two of the three games in the series and has lost three of four overall.
St. Louis squandered a chance to blow the game open in the first inning after loading the bases with nobody out. Matt Holliday lifted a sacrifice fly and David Freese struck out before a walk to Rasmus re-loaded the bases. Randy Winn was then rung up on strikes.
"It's hot and I'm throwing like 64 pitches in the first two innings. I say, 'You know what? I'll give them everything I have from now on.' It worked out real well," said Chen.
The Royals went ahead in the second on Betemit's three-run blast out to right- center and both DeJesus and Guillen had run-scoring singles in the third to up the margin to 5-1 as Garcia was forced from the game.
Kendall came through with a two-out double to chase home two more runs in the fourth and Pujols answered with a solo home run in the fifth for a 7-2 game.
"We had a our chance today to score some runs, but you've got to give credit to Bruce Chen. He made some pitches to get out of that inning," said Pujols of the Cards' early chances. "Hot weather like that, we made him (Chen) throw 30- something pitches. After that, he pretty much settled down and cruised with it."
KC tacked on a trio of insurance runs in the eighth as Kendall doubled in Willie Bloomquist and Scott Podsednik off Adam Ottavino and Dennys Reyes came on to yield an RBI single to DeJesus.
Rasmus took Blake Wood deep to open the ninth and round out the scoring.
Garcia came in holding the majors' second-best ERA at 1.79...Chen had lost his last two starts...The Royals had lost six of eight overall coming in...The Cardinals have won eight of the past 11 meetings between the clubs...St. Louis will host Arizona in a three-game series starting Monday while Kansas City hosts the White Sox for three games...Pujols has 51 RBI this year...Podsednik had two hits, scored three runs and stole his 21st and 22nd bases of the season. Bloomquist also had two hits...The Royals were 8-for-15 with runners in scoring position. Betemit doubled his RBI total on the year to six...Ottavino pitched 4 1/3 innings in relief, allowing five runs on nine hits...St. Louis ended with a 9-6 interleague record...Kansas City was 8-10 against the National League.