KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three regulars, Yadier Molina, Dylan Carlson and Paul DeJong, were missing from the Cardinals’ lineup on Sunday. Their starting pitcher was left-hander J.A. Happ, who was acquired just after he allowed nine runs in three innings to Detroit.
But this isn’t the same J.A. Happ. Nor is it the same Cardinals team that wallowed at or near .500 for two months.
Happ, obtained from Minnesota for John Gant, has given up just three runs and 11 hits over 16 2/3 innings in three starts. By beating Kansas City, 7-2, Happ, who worked 5 2/3 scoreless innings, won both the first and final games of an historic six-game trip for the Cardinals.
Only on May 5-10, 2017, had the Cardinals, then managed by Mike Matheny, who witnessed this weekend’s carnage as manager of the Royals, won every game on a trip of six or more games. That journey took them to Atlanta and Miami.
The Cardinals’ resuscitated offense scored four or more runs for the 11th consecutive game, the best they had done since 2017. They had four runs before they had four outs on Sunday as they raked left-hander Kris Bubic for seven runs in the first two innings, including Nolan Arenado’s third homer in three games of the series.
When the day was over, the Cardinals had gone five wins above the break-even mark at 61-56 and they had expanded their advantage over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium to 43-21 in interleague play since 1997.
Utilityman Jose Rondon, a .389 swatsmith against left-handed pitching, served as the designated hitter Sunday and he continued the trend that Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt had set in the series.
Arenado and Goldschmidt each drove in two runs in his tour as a DH and Rondon doubled home two in a three-run first inning against rookie Kris Bubic, who threw 34 pitches in the inning.
Tommy Edman, Goldschmidt and Arenado all had singled in succession, with Arenado’s hit scoring Edman.
Bubic didn’t make it through the second as some of the same cast of characters took center stage again.
Edman singled and Goldschmidt doubled him home. Then Arenado cracked his 25th home run of the season, a two-run drive that made it 6-0. For the second time in three days, Tyler O’Neill followed an Arenado homer with one of his own, a 432-foot launch to dead center that was O’Neill’s 20th of the season.
A double by Lars Nootbaar, extending his hitting streak to four games, finished Bubic for right-hander Domingo Tapia.
Happ allowed three hits and a walk over two innings but worked out of a bases-loaded spot in the second by retiring Cam Gallagher on a fly to center.
The Royals placed a runner at third with one out in the fifth but Happ again kept Kansas City off the board by inducing Gallagher to fly to short right and Whit Merrifield to pop up.
Happ, who permitted five singles, was lifted after 89 pitches and with two runners on in the sixth. Luis Garcia, posting his eighth scoreless game in succession, allowed Hunter Dozier to fly to deep right but Nootbaar jumped to make the catch and, in his exuberance, tossed the ball over his shoulder and into the seats.
Left fielder O’Neill made an even better play to end the seventh, racing toward the foul line to make a diving grab of Gallagher’s extra-base bid.
Justin Miller, who hadn't appeared in a week, surrendered a 450-foot homer by Salvador Perez in the eighth. It was Perez's 30th homer of the season and 400th career extra-base hit.
But left-hander T.J. McFarland, who has been equally as effective as Garcia, zipped through the ninth, allowing just a two-out hit to Gallagher.
