St. Louis Cardinals continue impressive Kauffman Stadium streak in win over KC Royals
Baseball’s most lopsided interleague rivalry played to its reputation Friday night.
St. Louis starter Jack Flaherty dominated in his first start off the injured list, and the Cardinals offense supported him just fine in a 6-0 win over the Kansas City Royals in front of 30,620 fans representing both sides of the Show-Me State.
Kauffman Stadium once again was a friendly venue for the visiting Cardinals; they improved to 41-21 in the park during interleague play (.661) while also continuing an overall trend of supremacy over the Royals.
Since interleague play began in 1997, St. Louis has gone 68-46 against KC (.596), the best record of any team against another in interleague play with at least 100 games played.
Flaherty, who made his first start since May 31 after suffering a left oblique injury, overwhelmed the Royals for six shutout innings, striking out five with no walks while allowing only two singles — one in the first inning and one in the sixth.
“He’s an elite pitcher — one of the best in the league,” Royals right fielder Hunter Dozier said. “He was throwing strikes tonight and pitching well. It’s tough to hit guys that have stuff like that and also are throwing strikes.”
The effort dropped Flaherty’s season ERA to 2.65.
“It’s impressive how sharp (he was), the first time back after long being off a major-league mound,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “Made quality pitches with his fastball ... it was all day. Our guys were taking some called strikes that were really well-executed.”
The Royals’ only real threat came in the eighth while trailing 5-0. Dozier and Hanser Alberto singled before a Whit Merrifield walk loaded the bases with two outs. Nicky Lopez battled Giovanny Gallegos to a 3-2 count before flying out to center, spiking his helmet in disgust after the final out was recorded.
“Nicky’s putting together a good at-bat and actually found the barrel. Just got too much air under it,” Matheny said. “But would loved to have seen Sal (Perez, who was on deck) walk to the plate right there. We’ve seen some exciting things happen when he gets into those positions. It would have been fun to see.”
Kansas City starter Mike Minor allowed three runs in six innings, striking out seven while walking one. The most damage against him came in the fourth, when Nolan Arenado and Tyler O’Neill blasted consecutive homers to give the Cardinals’ a 2-0 advantage.
Minor said at that point, he felt himself get off track, overthinking his mechanics instead of keeping his focus on making effective pitches.
“I guess the first three innings I’d say is pretty good. One of the better games early on I’ve had in a while,” Minor said. “I felt like they weren’t seeing it very well, and I was mixing up pretty well, had a better game plan.
“But they hit the ball hard a lot tonight.”
Minor’s quality start was the 100th of his career, making him the 14th active left-hander to reach that milestone.
Merrifield played in his 421st consecutive game for the Royals, which tied Alcides Escobar for the longest streak in franchise history. Merrifield also has the longest active consecutive-games-played run in the Majors.
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 10:41 PM.
