PITTSBURGH -- The Royals wasted no time swinging their way to a big inning, a big lead and a big win in their series opener against the Pirates on Friday night.

Six runs in the second inning from Kansas City's offense and a career-high-tying 11 strikeouts from starter Alec Marsh led the Royals to an 8-3 win over the Pirates at PNC Park for their 81st victory of the season, which guarantees Kansas City will not have a losing season for the first time since 2016.

The Royals have 14 regular-season games to play after Friday and have a five-game lead as the second American League Wild Card team while sitting just three games behind the Guardians -- who lost, 3-1, to Tampa Bay on Friday night -- in the AL Central.

“We need to keep winning, right? This is a hotly contested race for the playoffs,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “We know that every day is important, and we know that all we can do today is win one game. So it doesn’t matter if that was our 81st, 82nd, whatever it is. We can just keep putting our best foot forward every day.”

While in New York earlier this week, Kansas City struggled with runners in scoring position, going just 3-for-24 over the three-game series, including 0-for-11 in Wednesday’s extra-innings loss. The Royals cured those woes on Friday, at least for one inning. With one out in the second and Robbie Grossman on first after a walk, Pirates starter Luis L. Ortiz made an errant throw on Adam Frazier’s bouncer back to the mound and the Royals took advantage of the mistake.

Yuli Gurriel singled, Kyle Isbel turned a 10-pitch at-bat into a double down the left-field line, Tommy Pham singled and Salvador Perez capped the inning with a two-run homer to the Royals’ bullpen. Ortiz threw 47 pitches in the inning. And the Royals went 4-for-5 with RISP.

“The offense looked good tonight,” Frazier said. “Put together tough at-bats. If we can work at-bats like that [and] put a pitcher in a tough spot, it’s going to benefit us every night.”

Isbel’s solo homer -- which he ambushed on the first pitch instead of waiting around for 10 pitches -- in the fourth inning made the Royals’ score a full touchdown.

“Yuli had a really good at-bat before me,” Isbel said of the 12 pitches Gurriel saw in the fourth inning despite striking out. “I knew [Ortiz] was going to try to get ahead early right there, and I was able to capitalize.”

Frazier, making his first appearance back at PNC Park since his time as a Pirate from 2016-21, added on one more run with a Statcast-projected 402-foot home run in the eighth.

A six-run second inning meant Marsh sat for quite a while in between frames, and he began the bottom of the second with a four-pitch walk to Joey Bart, spraying four-seams and sinkers away from the Pirates catcher.

A quick mound visit from Perez and shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. reminded Marsh to get back in the zone. After a first-pitch ball to Rowdy Tellez, Perez called for a curveball, which Marsh landed for a strike and got him back in the zone.

“I was really happy after that four-pitch walk. Sal calls a curveball, and that helps me get back in my mechanics and stay on top of my pitches,” Marsh said.

In order for his curveball to be effective, Marsh has to “rip it in front,” he said, making him get back into his north-south delivery and be in the zone. And the curveball was effective Friday. The most significant one came in the fifth inning to strike out Bryan Reynolds with runners on first and third and two outs.

“It’s been my best pitch over the last couple months,” Marsh said. “Being able to throw it down for swing and miss to both righties and lefties. It’s been an equalizer pitch for me, not just relying on the sweeper.”

In total, the Pirates took 43 swings against Marsh and whiffed 18 times (42%), and he got another 18 called strikes for a called strike plus whiff rate (CSW%) of 38 percent. In 5 1/3 innings, he allowed one run on five hits with two walks.

With that kind of stuff, along with his 95-97 mph velocity, it’s not hard to envision Marsh pitching in big spots out of the bullpen when the Royals need it, whether that’s in the final two weeks of the season when Michael Lorenzen (left hamstring strain) makes his way back or in October.

“I hope it gives him some confidence,” Quatraro said. “The Reynolds [strikeout], that was huge. He’s a really good hitter. [Marsh] made some guys miss that don’t miss that much.”