Cardinals 4, Phillies 1: Matt Holliday belted a three-run homer and Jake Westbrook tossed 7 2/3 solid innings to win his career-high fifth consecutive start as visiting St. Louis evened its three-game series with Philadelphia.
Allen Craig joined Holliday with three hits and Carlos Beltran added an RBI single for the Cardinals, who defeated the Phillies for only the second time in six meetings this season. St. Louis moved to within 1 1/2 games of Pittsburgh for the second wild card spot.
After Cliff Lee (2-7) retired 12 straight batters, Jon Jay started the sixth inning with an infield single to extend his hitting streak to six games. Craig followed with his second double of the contest before Holliday deposited a fastball from Lee into the first row beyond the wall in right field for his 22nd homer - tying last season's total.
Westbrook (12-8) made the sixth-inning uprising stand up after allowing one run on four hits while inducing 16 ground-ball outs. Marc Rzepczynski retired Chase Utley to end the eighth inning before Jason Motte struck out a pair in the ninth for his 26th save.
Lee permitted four runs on 10 hits in seven innings to take the loss. The veteran southpaw was bidding for his first home victory since tossing a shutout against Atlanta on Sept. 5, 2011.
Domonic Brown scored on Ryan Howard's fielder's choice in the first inning to open the scoring.
GAME NOTEBOOK: Holliday's homer was his first since he went deep on two occasions on Aug. 1. ... Craig has five games this season with at least two doubles. ... Brown extended his hitting streak to eight games with a two-out single in the eighth inning. ... Yadier Molina was hit by a pitch for the second time in as many days. He has been hit on four occasions this season.
St. Louis | Philadelphia | |
Jake Westbrook | Player | Cliff Lee |
Win | W/L | Loss |
7.2 | IP | 7.0 |
3 | Strikeouts | 6 |
4 | Hits | 10 |
1.17 | ERA | 5.14 |
St. Louis | Philadelphia | |
Matt Holliday | Player | Domonic Brown |
3 | Hits | 1 |
3 | RBI | 0 |
1 | HR | 0 |
6 | TB | 1 |
.600 | Avg | .333 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
St. Louis | 10 | 1 | 16 | .278 | 15 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Philadelphia | 4 | 0 | 5 | .129 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 |