St. Louis ? The St. Louis Cardinals’ stingy pitching run is over and so is their five-game winning streak. Not that the Kansas City Royals exactly clobbered Joel Pineiro.

Brian Bannister worked six strong innings and drove in a run, and pinch-hitter Mike Jacobs’ RBI single snapped a seventh-inning tie, helping the Royals avoid a three-game sweep in the I-70 interleague series with a 3-2 victory on Sunday.

“Their staff has obviously been on a roll, the same way we were a couple weeks ago,” Bannister said. “I made pitches when I had to, kept the ball on the ground and then was able to get around (Albert) Pujols.”

Pujols was walked intentionally twice Sunday, once with two out and none on in the seventh, and drew seven walks in the series.

The Royals ended a 24-inning scoreless drought and finally got to a staff that shut them out, 5-0, each of the first two games. Kansas City, which has only two pinch-hit RBIs all season, has won only five of its last 15 games.

Manager Trey Hillman said a first-inning run “took the monkey off our back, no doubt.”

“We still only scored a few more,” Hillman added, “but it was enough.”

The Cardinals entered the finale with a five-game winning streak behind stingy starters who allowed only one run in 362/3 innings. Even with Sunday’s loss they’ve allowed five runs in six games for the first time since Sept. 14-18, 1982.

The run began with Pineiro’s three-hit shutout of the Cubs on Tuesday and ended when Pineiro (5-4) allowed three runs in seven innings on Sunday to offset a rare RBI single from the .090-hitting pitcher. Pineiro worked his fourth straight game without a walk and emphasized a sinker that produced 14 groundball outs, but fell to 3-1 with a 2.05 ERA in four starts at home this season.

“I hung a changeup to Jacobs and that was the ballgame to me,” Pineiro said. “Everything else was fine. Everything was working.”

Bannister’s hit was not nearly as surprising as Pineiro’s, given he’s 7-for-21 for his career with three RBIs after his hit in the fifth made it 2-0. Pineiro improved to 10-for-110 with seven RBIs after his full-count single lofted just out of the reach of shortstop Willie Bloomquist and tied it at 2 in the sixth.