St. Louis Cardinals top Colorado Rockies 4-2 behind Martinez

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2. 108. 4. 33. Final

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Carlos Martinez pitched into the seventh, adding a pair of hits and a run to lead his team to a 4-2 win over the Colorado Rockies Thursday afternoon.

Martinez tossed an effective 6 1/3 frames of two-run ball, striking out four and walking just one. With the win, the young right-hander improved to 7-2, while lowering his earned run average to 2.93 on the season.

St. Louis (39-21) got two runs in the third, adding insurance runs in both the fifth and eighth innings, respectively.

The first pair of tallies came against Colorado right-hander Chad Bettis, who was no-doubt a tough-luck loser at Coors Field Thursday, allowing three earned on six hits, striking out six in five innings of work.

Matt Carpenter drove the first run home with a line-drive RBI single to left, and the second came around in the form of a wild pitch that allowed Kolten Wong to cross home plate and give St. Louis a 2-0 advantage.

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Of St. Louis’ four runs, three came with two outs in an inning as the Cardinals continued to grind out wins – even without Matt Holliday, who is out for the time being with a strained muscle.

Mark Reynolds pushed the Cardinals’ lead to 3-0 in the fifth with a run-scoring double, but a Ben Paulsen two-run shot in the bottom of the seventh cut that lead to 3-2.

Youngster Randal Grichuk, who will no-doubt be a bigger part of the offense without Holliday and Matt Adams in action, showed he was up to the challenge in the top of the eighth, taking reliever Tommy Kahnle deep for a solo shot.

For manager Mike Matheny, Kevin Siegrist nailed down his 11th hold of the season, while Trevor Rosenthal shut the door for his 20th save of the 2015 season.