St. Louis, MO (Sports Network) - Mike Aviles hit a one-out solo homer in the eighth inning to lead the Kansas City Royals to a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the opener of a three-game set.

Kyle Davies (3-0) pitched seven strong innings for the Royals, allowing one run on five hits and three walks while striking out four.

Kansas City has won three games in a row.

"He's been pitching very effectively and he did against us," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said of Davies. "(Our defense) kept us in the game. We just had to string some offense together and we didn't."

Joel Pineiro matched Davies through seven innings yielding one run on seven hits and striking out four batters for the Cardinals. Ron Villone (1-2) gave up the deciding run to suffer the loss in two-thirds of an inning.

Aviles' only hit was the difference for Kansas City. After a David DeJesus groundout, Aviles blasted his third homer to left to set up Joakim Soria's 16th save.

Cesar Izturis hit a third-inning double and scored the only run for St. Louis, which had a modest two-game winning streak snapped.

St. Louis took the lead in the third when Brendan Ryan grounded into a double play scoring Izturis, who opened the inning with a double.

DeJesus hit a two-out single to center scoring Ross Gload to tie the game in the fifth.

The Cardinals had runners in the sixth, but Chris Duncan struck out looking to end the inning.