St. Louis, MO – Yuniesky Betancourt's two-run homer in the 15th inning lifted the Kansas City Royals over the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3, in the rubber match of a three-game interleague set at Busch Stadium.
Betancourt, who replaced an injured Chris Getz in the first, doubled to score Alex Gordon in the 14th to give Kansas City a 3-2 lead. But Yadier Molina tied the game at three in the home half when he singled with two outs to score Allen Craig.
Billy Butler clobbered a pinch-hit homer with two out in the ninth to tie the game at two. Butler fell behind 0-2 but turned on a fastball to help force extra innings.
"Motte throws really hard. I was just trying to get on top of the ball and shortened up and just put the barrell on it," Butler said of his homer.
Humberto Quintero drove in a run and Mike Moustakas had three hits and scored a run for the Royals, winners in five of their last six. Gordon was 0-for-3 but walked five times.
After blowing a save in the 14th Jonathan Broxton (1-1) tossed a perfect 15th to secure the win for the Royals.
Eduardo Sanchez (0-1) was pegged with the loss after giving up the winning run. Adam Wainwright started the game for St. Louis and gave up one run on five hits and struck out eight over seven frames.
"He pitched good enough to win, did a nice job for us," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said of Wainwright's outing.
Matt Holliday and Craig each hit solo homers for the Cardinals, losers in four of seven.
Kansas City took a 1-0 lead in the second. Moustakas singled, moved to second on Alcides Escobar's bunt single and scored when Quintero followed with a single to left.
St. Louis took a 2-1 lead in the sixth when Holliday and Craig cracked back-to-back solo homers.
The Royals wasted two opportunities to take the lead in the 11th. With Jeff Francoeur on third, Escobar attempted a squeeze bunt but Francoeur was out at the plate. Later in the frame, Kansas City had the bases loaded but Victor Marte was able to get Brayan Pena to ground out to end the threat.
Game Notes
The game took exactly five hours to complete...Luis Mendoza, who was the Royals starting pitcher, gave up six hits -- two solo homers -- and struck out five over six frames...Gordon had a six-game hitting streak snapped...Kansas City is 8-5 in series-deciding games this season...10 of the Royals past 11 games have been decided by two runs or less...Cardinals are five games out of first place in the National League Central, their largest deficit of the season...The Cardinals were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base.
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