St. Louis ? Jose Lima is confident the wait for his next victory won’t be nearly long as this one.

“I’m back, I’m back,” Lima said after earning his first major league win since last August in the Kansas City Royals’ 10-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals Friday night.

“I knew sooner or later I was going to get a phone call and I got it, and I’m not going to let it go,” he said.

The Royals received four RBIs from Ken Harvey in the first of six games in a 10-day span between the cross-state rivals that met in the 1985 World Series.

The Royals are 2-6 the last two seasons against the Cardinals, but punished St. Louis ace Matt Morris to even the series at 11-11 overall.

Raul Ibanez went 3-for-4 with three RBIs for the Royals, who rebounded from a 16-2 loss to the Twins and have won five of six overall. Desi Relaford homered on the second pitch of the game, and Harvey and Angel Berroa also connected for Kansas City.

“I think we have shown a lot of people and we are not going to go away,” manager Tony Pena said. “We go out and we fight and we’re going to fight until we reach our goal.”

Royals pitchers controlled Albert Pujols, who entered with a .471 average, two homers and 10 RBIs in nine career games against Kansas City. Pujols was 0-for-5.

Kansas City's carlos Beltran slides home past St. Louis catcher Mike Matheny. Beltran scored on a double by Raul Ibanez during the Royals' 10-4 victory Friday night in St. Louis.

Lima (1-0) allowed two runs and four hits in 5 1/3 innings in his second start since his contract was purchased June 15. He struck out two and walked three to beat the Cardinals for the first time in five career decisions, lowering his ERA to 7.11 against St. Louis.

Lima’s last big league victory came with the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 19, 2002, against Seattle. He was released Sept. 11 by Detroit and spent two months with the Newark Bears of the independent Atlantic League this season, going 6-1 with a 2.33 ERA before signing a minor league deal with the Royals on June 11.

“I know I don’t belong over there but to prove to myself and to prove to other people I still can pitch I went there to humiliate myself,” Lima said. “You know what, it paid off.”

Morris (7-5) beat the Royals twice last year, allowing two runs in 16 innings. But he’s struggled since throwing consecutive shutouts in May, yielding 23 earned runs in 25 innings over five outings to hike his ERA from 2.26 to 3.64.

The right-hander recorded only two outs in his previous outing at Yankee Stadium, cut short by a rain delay of 1 hour, 27 minutes.

“I don’t think there was anything positive out of today,” Morris said. “It’s not a problem with my arm, it’s just a problem with my location.

“My velocity was a little down, but I got the ball up in some bad spots.”

Royals manager Tony Pena, center, laughs with starting pitcher Jose Lima, right, and catcher Brent Mayne. The Royals defeated the Cardinals, 10-4, Friday night in St. Louis.

The Royals hit Morris hard in a four-run fifth, highlighted by Ibanez’s three-run double off the left-field wall. Harvey, the next batter, added an RBI double for a 5-0 lead.

Mike Matheny had an RBI double and Bo Hart, who had two hits for the second straight game since being called up from the minors, added a run-scoring single in a three-run sixth for the Cardinals. The rally fizzled after reliever Jeff Fassero was allowed to bat with a runner on first and one out and struck out attempting to bunt, never making contact.

The Royals put the game away with two-run homers by Harvey and Berroa off Fassero in the seventh for a 9-3 lead.

Manager Tony La Russa said he let Fassero bat because the Cardinals have a short bench. Scott Rolen missed his fourth game this week with a stiff neck and soreness in his shoulders from a June 12 headfirst slide in Boston.

“He had a way to advance the runner,” La Russa said.

Edgar Renteria added an RBI single in the seventh for St. Louis, and Harvey drove in his fourth run with a single in the eighth.

Notes: After going a team-record 75 games without an error, Royals 3B Joe Randa committed his first two of the season, bobbling a grounder by Eduardo Perez in the first and bouncing a throw to first after a nice stab on a grounder by Matheny in the fourth. The errorless streak dated to Sept. 7, 2002. Randa also went 0-for-5. … Royals 1B Mike Sweeney missed his second straight game with tightness in his upper back. … Renteria was 2-for-5 for his NL-leading 33rd multihit game. … Ibanez leads the Royals with 28 multihit games.