Brian Bannister broke a nine-game skid while Ryan Shealy belted two HRs.

September 15, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLEVELAND — Brian Bannister won for the first time in nearly three months and Ryan Shealy homered twice and drove in five runs as the Kansas City Royals defeated the Cleveland Indians 13-3 Sunday.

Bannister (8-15) gave up four hits and three runs in the first inning, then settled down and won for the first time in 14 starts to snap his nine-game losing streak. He had not won since beating Colorado in an interleague game June 23. His last win over an AL club was June 1, a 6-1 triumph in Cleveland.

The right-hander improved to 3-1 with a 1.91 ERA in five career starts against the Indians after allowing three runs and six hits over six innings. He had been pounded for 10 hits and seven runs over 3 2/3 innings by Minnesota in his previous start Tuesday and had a 7.79 ERA during his losing streak.

Shealy had his second career multi-homer game, giving him four homers and nine RBIs since being called up from Triple-A Omaha on Tuesday. The five RBIs tied a career high.

Jose Guillen drove in three runs while David DeJesus and Alberto Callaspo had two RBIs apiece as the Royals got 17 hits. Kansas City totaled 59 hits in the four-game series, winning the final three.

DeJesus put Kansas City ahead 5-3 with a two-out, two-run single off Edward Mujica (2-2) in the fourth. Guillen followed with a two-run double off Juan Rincon.

Grady Sizemore doubled off Bannister to lead off Cleveland’s first inning. Jhonny Peralta and Ryan Garko had RBI singles around a sacrifice fly by Victor Martinez for a 3-0 lead.

The Royals tied it at 3 in the third off Indians starter Jeremy Sowers. Shealy hit a solo homer in the second. In the third, Callaspo had an RBI double and scored on Shealy’s two-out bloop single to right.

Sowers retired the side on eight pitches in the first, then needed 67 pitches to get through the next two innings. He gave up three runs and five hits over three innings, his shortest outing in 14 starts since June 30, a three-inning stint in a loss to the Chicago White Sox.

Sowers was coming off his best performance of the season when he yielded only four hits and one run over eight innings in a win Tuesday night in Baltimore.

Pirates 7, Cardinals 2

PITTSBURGH — Adam LaRoche drove in three runs with a pair of hits and Pittsburgh scored three times in both the first and second innings to complete a three-game sweep.

Nate McLouth hit his 25th homer — his previous major league high was 13 last season — and had two RBIs as the Pirates all but finished off St. Louis in the NL wild card race.

The 2006 World Series champions have lost five in a row and 11 of 15. The Cardinals trail three teams for the wild card with only 13 games to play — St. Louis is five games behind Milwaukee for the fourth playoff spot, but would have been down by only two if it had swept the series.

The Cardinals didn’t show much spark until both benches emptied briefly in the eighth. Pitcher Ron Villone had to be restrained by catcher Jason LaRue after the Pirates’ Doug Mientkiewicz apparently didn’t like how he was tagged by second baseman Aaron Miles while being doubled off second to end the inning.

T.J. Beam (2-1), the second of five Pittsburgh pitchers, allowed one run over three innings for the victory. He followed Jason Davis, who gave up one run in three innings while making a spot start because Jeff Karstens (abscessed tooth) still isn’t ready to pitch. Karstens is scheduled to start Tuesday night against the Dodgers.