KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A day after a scoreless draw between Ecuador and Curacao riveted nearly 70,000 World Cup fans at the football stadium adjacent to the ballpark by Blue Ridge Cutoff, there would be no such zero-sum tension, no lack of scoring in Kansas City.

The stinginess on the pitch one day was not matched by the pitches the next.

During a Father’s Day festival of runs, the Cardinals outlasted the host Royals for a 12-10 victory at Kauffman Stadium that avoided a series sweep in what became a hothouse for offense. The Cardinals scored nine runs before the Royals’ starter could get a sixth out, then held on for dear life through an afternoon exchange of rallies. Rookie JJ Wetherholt hit two home runs in his first two at-bats, and the lead he helped create got a boost from three-run homers by Masyn Winn and Ivan Herrera.

The Cardinals led by as many as seven runs once, and they twice held leads of five runs. Yet in the ninth inning, the Royals got the potential winning run to the plate.

With one out, they had the tying run in scoring position.

The Royals moved in parts of the fences at Kauffman Stadium this past offseason to create a more favorable offensive environment. Given the cloudburst of runs in the series with the Cardinals, Kansas City may as well have changed the elevation of the ballpark, too. The Cardinals had a season-high 16 hits in the Sunday finale, and with one out in the ninth, the two teams had combined to score 53 runs in the series.

Jac Caglianone began the threat in the ninth, crushing his second homer of the game and the eighth overall homer from the teams on the afternoon.

Cardinals starter Dustin May allowed six runs on six hits and did not see the third inning. He and Kansas City starter Stephen Kolek combined to allow 15 runs.

They got a combined 11 outs.

The Cardinals leaned into the bullpen and six pitchers between May's final pitch and closer Riley O'Brien's first pitch. Those middle relievers, topped by rookie Max Rajcic and Gordon Graceffo, were pivotal to the win by holding the Royals to two runs on six hits through six innings.

Could have been worse

In his start following this past week’s one-hit, complete-game shutout, May did not spend much time teasing an encore.

The first batter May faced flared a single to center field that glanced off Winn’s glove, and by the time May saw a sixth hitter in the inning, the Royals had scored twice to nibble into the Cardinals’ early lead.

May was coming off the first shutout of his career and back-to-back 101-pitch outings. The Cardinals remain proactively aware of and conservative about starter usage, and with a full complement in the bullpen, they were prepared to offer May plenty of support to avoid pushing deep in Sunday’s game after notable workloads in recent outings. They would need to go to the relief for reasons other than saving May some mileage.

They had to save a win.

May did not throw a pitch in the third inning, and he was out of the game after allowing six runs on six hits and eight base runners. Still, it could have been worse.

It was for the Royals’ starter.

When last Kolek faced the Cardinals, he held them scoreless through 6 1/3 strong innings. He struck out three and limited the Cardinals to four hits.

They had that many Sunday before he got a second out.

He allowed nine runs before he got a sixth out.

Wetherholt ties club rookie record

On the third pitch of the game and the second cutter he saw, Wetherholt put himself one swing later this summer away from owning a Cardinals club record for rookies.

Wetherholt’s leadoff homer to start the five-run first inning was his third of the season, and that ties the record for a Cardinals rookie.

Bo Hart was the most recent to do so.

Hart was also the last rookie to hit a leadoff homer at all before Wetherhollt’s against Seattle’s Bryan Woo in April. In 2003, Hart hit three leadoff homers total for the season, and that matched the total from rookies Lou Klein in 1943 and Wally Moon in 1954.

Five-run burst sets tone

The Cardinals took advantage of a bountiful time for offense on both sides with a five-run first inning that was a harbinger of rallies to come, if not a surefire lead for a win.

Following Wetherholt’s leadoff homer, five of the next six batters reached base. Kolek hit Herrera with a sinker to give the Cardinals designated hitter a welt for the 10th time this month and a league-high 21st HBP of the season. Alec Burleson followed with a walk, and then came the base hits.

Lars Nootbaar doubled home Herrera.

Winn’s homer scored both Nootbaar and Burleson. Winn’s third homer of the season sped out of the ballpark and over the left-field wall. The estimated distance of the laser was 410 feet.

The Royals would score more than five runs in the game, of course, but they would never overtake the Cardinals’ lead from the first inning on. The Cardinals added four more runs in the second inning, and Herrera drilled a 414-foot, three-run homer in the fifth to reestablish a wide lead. The Royals had a four-run inning of their own with Caglianone’s third homer in as many days against the Cardinals, and Kansas City would narrow the deficit down to two runs by the end of the fourth inning.

Herrera’s 10th homer of the season regrew the gap and left it to the bullpens to decide.

Cards hit for cycle in 2nd

It took an infield single with two outs to bring home the Cardinals’ fourth run of the inning, extend a lead that it turned out they’d need and complete something they haven’t done in five years.

Winn outracing a throw to first for a single gave the Cardinals lineup the cycle in the second. Nathan Church opened the inning with a leadoff double, and Wetherholt followed with his second homer of the game to give the Cardinals two spokes of the cycle. Burleson lined a ball to center field that Kameron Misner missed and had to chase to the wall.

While he did, Burleson reached third for the triple.

That left only a single for the Cardinals to complete the cycle as a team.

Burleson got to third with no outs. The Cardinals had several chances to get the single, but they were stuck on it still when Winn batted because of consecutive ground outs. Winn poked a ground toward third and was able to outrun the play for an RBI infield single. The RBI was Winn’s fourth of the game on two swings, and the cycle by the Cardinals within an inning was their first since the fourth inning on July 25, 2021, at Cincinnati.

In that cycle, Nolan Arenado hit the triple, and Paul DeJong and Tommy Edman had the single and double, respectively. Harrison Bader hit the homer.

Walker robs homer

Earlier in the series, with George Brett watching, Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez overtook the Hall of Famer’s career record for homers at Kauffman.

It took the reach of a Cardinal to keep Perez from extending it.

On Thursday, Perez, a Gold Glove-winning catcher and the bedrock soul of the Royals for more than a decade now, hit his 137th home run at Kansas City’s home ballpark. That moved him ahead of Brett, who had held the record for the ballpark since August 1985. Perez is also nearing Brett’s overall franchise record for homers. The catcher’s 313 are four shy of Brett’s 317, and if not for Jordan Walker’s glove, he’d be one closer.

In the seventh inning, Perez tagged a ball to lead off the inning, and it carried toward the right field fence and the Royals bullpen. Walker jumped at the wall and, using every inch of his 6-foot-8 frame and reach, was able to snag the ball before it vanished into the bullpen.

The robbed homer set up a quick inning for veteran reliever Ryne Stanek, the fifth reliever used by the Cardinals in the game.

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