KANSAS CITY -- Right-hander Chris Young continued his amazing stretch as a fill-in starter with six shutout innings, and Kendrys Morales hit two homers and drove in five runs as the Royals cruised to a 5-0 win over the cross-state rival Cardinals in the I-70 Series opener on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium.

The Royals now have won four straight and six of seven, and they also now own the best record in baseball at 27-14.

How does it make manager Ned Yost feel?

“Wonderful,” Yost said flatly. “You guys are asking the wrong guy because I’m a day-to-day guy. I don’t even know what our record is. I know we’re doing good. But I don’t sit there and dwell on that. I focus on today.”

But Yost had praise for his group.

“We’re a very solid defensive team and we can beat you in a lot of ways,” he said. “We can beat you defensively, we can beat you with our pitching, we can manufacture runs, we can beat you with our speed and now we can beat you with some power.”

Young lowered his ERA to 0.78, while giving up six hits, walking two and striking out two. In four fill-in starts, Young has given up one earned run over 22 2/3 innings. More >

Morales belted a three-run homer in the first and a two-run homer in the third.

Cardinals starter Lance Lynn lasted six innings, giving up 10 hits and five earned runs.