It sure feels good as a fan watching your team win the opening game of a new series, but if feels even better when it comes at the hands of your rival, the St. Louis Cardinals.
Kansas City squandered an early lead and then came back to take the lead in the eighth inning, as Kansas City defeated the Cardinals 5-4, behind six innings of Felipe Paulino and an inning each of Blake Wood, Aaron Crow, and Joakim Soria.
After Melky Cabrera and Eric Hosmer both reached on singles in the first inning against Chris Carpenter, Jeff Francoeur singled to right scoring Cabrera. On the year Francoeur now has 43 RBI.
Then in the second, with Chris Getz and Alcides Escobar on base, Alex Gordon singled to right scoring two runs as Kansas City took a 3-0 lead.
The Cardinals answered in the third inning, posting four runs against the Royals starter Paulino, who allowed four runs on five hits over his six innings of work. He also struck out four, while walking five.
Paulino tied the game for the Royals in the fifth inning, when his sacrifice bunt scored Getz, making it 4-4. Paulino looked good with the bat in his hand, laying down two sacrifices in his two times at the plate.
In the sixth inning it appeared St. Louis may take the lead as the first two batters singled off Paulino, before Carpenter bunted out to a diving Paulino who turned and threw to second to double off Daniel Descalso. It nearly turn into a triple play as Escobar fired the ball to first trying to pick off Tyler Green returning to first.
Kansas City took the lead in the eighth inning as Mike Moustakas lead off the inning with a walk and advanced to second on Matt Treanor's sacrifice. After Getz lined out, Escobar was safe at second on an Albert Pujols error as Moustakas came around and slide into home to beat the throw, giving the Royals the lead. Escobar continued his recent improvement at the plate, with two more hits. He is now hitting .246/.279/.294 on the year.
After Crow held the Cardinals scoreless in the eighth, Soria entered for the ninth and after allowing a two out single to Jon Jay, Soria got Pujols to ground out as the Royals picked up the win. For Soria it was his 11th save.
Wood notched the win, moving to 3-0, while Carpenter fell to 1-7 in taking the loss. Kansas City improved to 31-39, while St Louis dropped their seventh game in a row, falling to 38-33. The full boxscore can be accessed here. With the road win, Kansas City picked up their 10th victory away from home this season, the last major league team to do so this season.
Kansas City goes for two in a row tomorrow evening at 6:15 CST as Vin Mazzaro (1-1 10.80) takes the mound to face Jake Westbrook (6-4 5.16).