Newly recalled Virgil Vasquez won his first major-league game and equaled his previous career total with seven strikeouts, and some of the lighter Pirates batters gave him the support of a season-high-tying trio of home runs -- on just six total hits -- amid a 5-3 victory over Kansas City tonight before 18,458 at PNC Park.

Vasquez went 0-1 in five 2007 games with the American League Detroit Tigers and was signed as a free agent after three teams waived him in the offseason. After impressing Pirates management in spring training and nearly making the rotation, he was summoned to allow Charlie Morton another two days of rest on his balky hamstring -- when he'll start for the gone-to-Class-AAA Ian Snell -- and thrown into the starting rotation. After yielding two runs on as many doubles in the second inning, Vasquez settled to the point where he got out 13 of the final 15 Royals batters: five by strikeouts while only three balls, one a double by long-ago Pirates outfielder Jose Guillen, left the infield.

Nyjer Morgan hit a two-run homer, his second homer of the season and third in the big leagues, to tie the game at 2-2 in the third inning. Jason Jaromillo hit his second in three nights and third of the season to give the Pirates a 3-2 lead in the fourth. And, an inning after an Andrew McCutchen leadoff walk was followed by a Morgan bunt single and a Freddy Sanchez sacrifice-fly RBI, Jack Wilson in the sixth knocked his third homer of the season.

It marked the Pirates' first three-game winning streak in interleague play since four home victories in a row over Baltimore and Tampa Bay in June 2005 -- covering a span some interleague 59 games until they won the past two against Cleveland and tonight over Kansas City.

The Pirates are 11-0 when they hit two or more homers and 3-0 with three, something they've done only twice before this season -- June 17 at Minnesota and April 11 at Cincinnati -- but not at PNC Park until tonight.