Cards fly with Woody

Williams leads St. Louis to 8-1 victory over Royals with his arm and bat.

By R.B. Fallstrom ~ The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS -- Woody Williams bounced back from two subpar starts with eight strong innings, and went 2-for-3 with an RBI double in the Cardinals' 8-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Saturday night.

Albert Pujols homered and drove in four runs and rookie Bo Hart had three hits, making him 7-for-12 in three games since he was brought up from Triple-A Memphis on Thursday. Hart replaced the injured Miguel Cairo (broken hand), who had replaced the injured Fernando Vina (torn hamstring).

The Cardinals have won four of five and took a 12-11 lead in the interleague series against their cross-state rivals, who beat them in the 1985 World Series. Joe Randa homered for the Royals, who lost for only the second time in seven games.

Williams (9-2) allowed five hits and had eight strikeouts, six on called third strikes, with one walk. He allowed 10 runs in 12 innings in his previous two starts, both on the road, but against the Royals he lowered his home ERA to an NL-best 1.53 with a 7-1 record.

He's 15-3 with a 1.99 ERA for his career at Busch Stadium.

Williams singled in the second and his double off Darrell May (0-4) gave the Cardinals a 3-1 lead in the fourth. One of the NL's better-hitting pitchers, Williams is batting .281 (9-for-32) with five RBIs this year.

May gave up four runs and nine hits in six innings. He's winless in 13 starts this season and 16 overall dating to Sept. 11, 2002, against the White Sox, although he was named the team's pitcher of the month in May when he was 0-0 with a 3.76 ERA.

Pujols and Eduardo Perez had RBI doubles in the first and Mike Matheny's fourth homer made it 4-1 in the sixth. Pujols had an RBI double and Edgar Renteria, who was 2-for-4, drove him in with a single off Jason Gilfillan to make it 6-1 in the seventh.

Pujols added a two-run shot in the eighth inning off Ryan Bukvich for his 21st homer of the season.

Noteworthy

n St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen, suffering from a whiplash-like effect after a head-first slide earlier this month, will get at least three more days off to rest the injury. The team decided on this course of action after Rolen met with Dr. George Paletta, the Cardinals' team physician, on Friday night. Rolen missed his third straight start and fifth game this week on Saturday night.

Royals manager Tony Pena was ejected for arguing pitch calls after the top of the fifth. It's Pena's second ejection this season.

Pujols, who was 0-for-5 on Friday, has hit in nine of 10 games after going hitless the previous game. He's a combined 16-for-39 (.410) with four homers and 13 RBIs under that scenario and has gone hitless in consecutive starts only once, on April 9-10 at Colorado.

The Royals are 49-67 all-time in interleague play.

Renteria leads the majors with 34 multihit games.