The visiting St. Louis Cardinals hit four solo home runs to back the solid effort from starting pitcher Miles Mikolas and beat the Atlanta Braves 6-2 on Sunday in the rubber game of their three-game series.
The Cardinals won the season series 4-2 and pulled to within 2 1/2 games of Atlanta in the race for the National League’s first wild-card berth. It was the first time St. Louis has won the season series against Atlanta since 2017.
Paul Goldschmidt, Alec Burleson, Lars Nootbaar and Willson Contreras all went deep for St. Louis.
Burleson was 2-for-5 with two RBIs, giving him an RBI is six straight games and six in the series. Burleson has recorded 41 of his 59 RBI since June 1, the most in the National League during that stretch.
Mikolas (8-8) pitched six innings and allowed two runs on seven hits, one walk and three strikeouts. The St. Louis defense turned three double plays behind him.
Ryan Fernandez, Andrew Kittredge and Ryan Helsley each threw a scoreless inning to finish the game
Atlanta rookie Spencer Schwellenbach (3-5) pitched six innings and allowed four runs on seven hits — three of them home runs — and eight strikeouts. The loss snapped his two-game winning streak.
Atlanta second baseman Ozzie Albies injured his left wrist in the ninth inning. Albies banged his glove on the shoulder of base-stealer Michael Siani and was holding his left arm while exiting the field. Albies was still having the wrist evaluated after the game, but manager Brian Snitker said the injury “is not good” and that Albies would be going on the injured list.
Goldschmidt got St. Louis on the board in the second inning and ended an 0-for-12 skid with a solo homer, his 14th homer of the season. Burleson added a solo shot, his 18th, in the third inning.
The Braves cut the lead to 2-1 in the bottom of the third on Jarred Kelenic’s solo homer, his 11th.
Nootbaar hit a solo homer, his seventh, in the fourth inning, and Burleson added a run-scoring single in the fifth for a 4-1 advantage.
The Braves rallied for a run in the home half of the fifth when Ramon Laureano doubled with two outs and scored on Orlando Arcia’s single.
St. Louis tacked on a run in the eighth when Conteras went deep against reliever Jesse Chavez for his 11th homer.
–Field Level Media
