Matt Holliday, St. Louis Cardinals win 5-4 to take first place

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Matt Holliday drove in three RBI as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-4 to take sole possession of first place in the National League Central Division.

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The left fielder has picked an awesome time to go on a tear. In the last three games, Holliday has driven in 12 runners and is sitting on 81 RBI this season. The three-game stretch of multi-RBI games for Holliday is the first for him since June 18-22, 2010 when he had multiple RBI in four straight games. The last Cardinal to do so was Scott Rolen in 2002 and the left Cardinals outfielder to accomplish such a feat was Enos Slaughter in 1950.

Holliday has 227 RBI in the seventh inning or later since 2007. He is second only to Miguel Cabrera (266) and Albert Pujols (228).

In the third inning, Holliday doubled home Lance Lynn and Oscar Taveras to give the Cardinals their first runs of the day.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Kolten Wong hit his 11th home run of the season, driving in Pete Kozma. It was the second set of home runs in back to back games for Wong and the first pinch-hit home run for the Cardinals this season. Later in the inning, Holliday singled to left and drove in Jon Jay to give the Cardinals the 5-4 lead. It was the game-winning hit.

Lynn took the mound for the Cardinals and was down early 3-0 after the first two innings. In six innings, the Indiana native allowed three runs on eight hits. He walked three and struck out three. Lynn became the 16th pitcher to strike out 150 batters in each of the last three seasons.

Kevin Siegrist pitched the first third of the seventh inning and gave up a home run to Andrew McCutchen. Seth Maness finished out the seventh inning and picked up his sixth win of the season.

Carlos Martinez pitched a scoreless eighth but allowed a hit and walk.

Trevor Rosenthal pitched a perfect ninth inning to record his 41st save of the season.