Martinez, Pujols double-team Royals

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Tino Martinez homered and had a season-high four hits as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Kansas City Royals 12-6 Friday night.

Albert Pujols doubled three times and drove in three runs for the Cardinals, whose 12 runs were a season high.

Darryl Kile (4-3) went 5 1-3 innings, allowing three earned runs on six hits. Kile is 3-0 with a 2.30 ERA in his past five starts.

Martinez led off the Cardinals' third with his seventh home run and drove home Pujols with a single in the seventh. He went 4-for-5.

Pujols, who went to high school and junior college in the Kansas City area, doubled home a run in the first, doubled and scored in the seventh and doubled home two more runs in the seventh.

Paul Byrd came in averaging an AL-best 1.4 walks per nine innings. He walked Mike Matheny and Eduardo Perez on eight pitches in the Cardinals' five-run second.

Byrd (8-4) gave up seven runs, five of which were earned, on 10 hits over six innings. He has allowed 12 earned runs in 9 2-3 innings, a 11.20 ERA, in losing his past two starts.

Rookie Brandon Berger, who was promoted Thursday from Class AAA Omaha, hit two home runs, his first multi-homer game, and drove in four of the Royals runs.

Berger came into the game when Mark Quinn strained his left hamstring in the first while chasing Pujols' double. He hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the sixth to cut the Cardinals' lead to 6-3 and a bases-empty home run, his third, off Kile in the sixth.

A.J. Hinch hit his fifth homer in the Royals' eighth inning.