Cards score eight in third; beat Brewers 13 to 1 (4/27)

The St. Louis Cardinals exploded for eight runs in the third-inning, got a strong outing from starting pitcher Jake Westbrook, and defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 13-to-1 on Friday night to open up a three game weekend series at Busch Stadium.

Jake Westbrook gave up one run in seven innings of work, and improved his record on the season to 3-1 overall. Westbrook finished the night with no walks and five strikeouts.

The Cardinals, who improved to 13-7 on the season with tonight's win, set a season-high in both runs in an inning (eight in the third) and total runs in a game (13). The win was the eighth time in the teams last twelve overall.

On the other hand, Milwaukee starter Yovanni Gallardo had a start he hopes to very soon forget about. He was pulled after just two innings of work following his shortest outing of the season in which he gave up eight runs on eight hits. He threw sixty-eight pitches total on the night--but just 39 for strikes.

The Brewers got a lot of bullpen work tonight, as they used three guys for a combined six-innings of work. McClendon threw three innings and gave up four runs on five hits, while Parra threw two scoreless innings and Dillard gave up one run on two hits in just an inning of work.

The Cardinals bullpen featured two innings total out of both J.C. Romero and Fernando Salas. The two pitchers combined to give up no hits, nor any base runners.

The Cardinals exploded for an electric-offensive output that included thirteen runs and fifteen hits. Both Jon Jay and Skip Schumaker combined to go 5-for-8 from the plate with six RBIs--leading to both of them splitting "RedBird Nation's" player of the game award.

Everybody that started the game for the Cardinals tonight got atleast one hit and scored atleast one run--with the exception of the starting pitcher Westbrook.

St. Louis entered the bottom half of the third inning with a 2-1 lead before starting the explosion when Carlos Beltran singled to right to score Jay. Freese followed that up with a single to center that scored Matt Holliday to bring the lead to 4-to-1. The Cardinals did all this without hitting a single home run--which makes this offensive game all that much more impressive.

Yadier Molina finished the night with two hits over four at bats and drove in two runs as well. The Cardinals improved there first place record in the NL Central to 13-7 while Milwaukee fell to 9-11--the Cardinals now lead the series season between the two foes by a total of 3-1 heading into tomorrow's game that will be nationally televised on FOX starting at noon central time.