Molina's Big Game fuels Cardinals past the Royals in series opener

The Cardinals manager Mike Matheny decided to switch things up in the batting order, and it payed its' dividends as Yadier Molina had a huge game at the plate to help lead St. Louis past the Kansas City Royals by a score of 6-3 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City in a regular season Major League Baseball regular season contest on Monday afternoon.

For just the second time in his entire MLB playing career, Molina was put in the two-hole in the lineup -- and it sure helped Adam Wainwright and his team in a big way against the Cardinals' American League rival in the I70 series between the two ball clubs. He hit a home run as well as driving in a total of four runs -- and silenced a sold out KC crowd on a natural holiday to the entire sport and the game of baseball.

Starting pitcher Adam Wainwright picked up his seventh win of the season as he pitched eight excellent innings, giving up just three runs on twelve hits. Despite a season high 12 hits allowed from Waino, he seemed to always get that 'huge' out when he needed it. He finished with five strikeouts and no walks given out as his overall record is now 7-3 early on in the season.

Edward Mujica allowed one hit in his save opportunity but gave up no runs as he has done quite a bit so far this season. He struck out one batter in the ninth, and with the save he has officially completed all 15 save opportunities successfully and has certainly been a huge factor into the success for the Cardinals through these first 50 games.

Molina got the scoring started as he hit a two-run bomb in the top of the first inning as Matt Carpenter was the man on base. Allen Craig also drove in a run as he made it 4-1 St. Louis before the Royals came back in the bottom half of the third to make it 4-3. Yadier drove in runs in the first inning, the third inning, as well as in the fourth inning.

James Shields didn't have such a great start for KC though, as he pitched six innings and gave up six runs on nine hits and walked five while striking out just 4. Despite having a nice ERA of 2.96, the loss today had his record fall to 2-6 on the season and certainly seems to have him losing some confidence as well.

Although the Royals out hit St. Louis by a total of 13-to-12, the Cardinals improved their overall record to an MLB best 33-17 -- while Kansas City fell to 21-27 with their downfall over the last month still continuing following a pretty impressive start during the opening month of April. The game tomorrow will deliver the first pitch at 7:10 pm Central Time and will be televised on FOX Sports Midwest with the pregame beginning at 6:30 pm Central Time.