Cardinals take Sunday game from Giants

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Three home runs help the St. Louis Cardinals prevail over the San Francisco Giants in the final game of a three-game set. Co-editor Steve Ungrey has the latest from AT&T Park.


They always say good things come in threes.

Three triples helped the St. Louis Cardinals to a shutout win on Saturday, and Sunday the longball struck three times and aided the Cardinals to a 7-5 victory.

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What’s very encouraging about this victory is the identity of the three homer hitters. It looks like the low end of the Cardinal hitting lineup is finally coming through with some power.

Let’s look at the action:

THE HIGHLIGHTS

*Matt Carpenter stroked his 20th homer of the season, but Brandon Moss had his 17th home run and second in a Cardinals uniform. Mark Reynolds hit his 12th. With Moss and Reynolds among the homer hitters, this gives St. Louis fans reason for hope. If the Cardinals are going anywhere they need solid pitching and clutch hitting from everyone involved.

*The Cardinals built a 5-2 lead through four innings as starter Jaime Garcia overcame four earned runs through 6 1/3 innings and struck out just one. It wasn’t Garcia’s best start, but the Cardinals will take it.

*The absence of Trevor Rosenthal due to paternity leave did not hurt the team at all. In fact, Kevin Siegrist, Steve Cishek and Jonathan Broxton were perfect in Rosenthal’s absence.

THE LOWLIGHTS

*Aside from the top of the lineup hitting well like Buster Posey, Marlon Byrd and Brandon Belt, there wasn’t much of a low point for St. Louis against the Giants.

WHAT’S NEXT

St. Louis returns home for the first in a series against the Washington Nationals, and the first game should be a good one. John Lackey (11-8, 2.92 ERA) goes up against Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez.