Cards Play Long Ball In 8-5 Win

The Cards aren't known for their muscle as much as their small ball attack, but last night they absolutely murdered three pitches, and it was enough to lead St. Louis to an 8-5 win over Pittsburgh. In the second, Jhonny Peralta hit a solo shot off the batter's eye and an inning later, Matt Holliday crushed a shot over The Notch, both off Frankie Liriano. The back breaker came off Arquimedes Caminero in the seventh, when Kolten Wong lost one high in the right field seats to bring in three more Redbirds. In fact, seven of St. Louis' 11 hits went for extra bases.

It was good Frankie, bad Frankie - he went 6-1/3 innings, striking out ten but surrendering two long balls among his six hits. One encouraging sign was that the Bucs kept surging back as the attack has picked it up the last couple of nights. Four Pirates had multi-hit nights, with Starling Marte leading the pack with three knocks while Cutch, The Kid and Fran Cervelli added a pair of hits. The Cards even helped when Marte's rocket got under Pete Kozma to plate one run and Yadier Molina had the ball knocked out of his mitt by Andrew to score another.

The Kid remains the Bucs most consistent hitter (photo: Getty Images)

But of 12 Bucco hits, only one was extra bases, and the baseball gods made up for the soft runs with several smoked at 'em balls off Buc bats, frustrating their efforts at a big frame. Pittsburgh put up their runs one per inning as a crooked numbered frame eluded them.

Well, the pitching had to have a down day. though it's too bad it wasn't during the run-per-game losing streak. The Pirate bullpen bears watching, too - it's been the model of inconsistency over the first few weeks of the season, and the jury is still out as to their ability to hang to leads even as the starters are getting deep into games more and more often.

Vance Worley tales on Carlos Martinez tonight.

• Josh Harrison ended an 0-for-20 drought with a soft single and roped a couple more well-struck outs.
• Frankie's set a season high with 10 whiffs.
• Matt Carpenter didn't make the trip to Pittsburgh. He's reported to suffer from fatigue and an accelerated heart beat, and will rest until next week. 
• The Redbirds have won 10-of-11 and seven in a row against the Bucs.
• Charlie Morton tossed seven scoreless innings in his rehab start at Altoona. Ground Chuck surrendered two hits, walked two, struck out five and served up 84 pitches. He gave his take on the outing to Mick Reinhard of Penn Live after the game.
• The Indianapolis Indians have placed Nick Kingham (elbow) on the DL.