Joc Pederson and Kris Bryant hit three-run doubles to lift the Chicago Cubs past the visiting St. Louis Cardinals 10-5 Friday.
Patrick Wisdom added a two-run home run for the Cubs, who won for just the second time in their last 14 games.
Paul DeJong hit a two-homer for the Cardinals, who lost for the fourth time in six games.
Cubs starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks (11-4) held the Cardinals to two runs on seven hits and a walk in 6 1/3 innings.
Cardinals starting pitcher Wade LeBlanc (0-2) lasted just three innings for the Cardinals. He allowed three runs on five hits and three walks.
The Cubs took a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Willson Contreras walked leading off, Wisdom hit a single and Javier Baez hit a one-out single to load the bases.
Pederson cleared the bases with a two-out double off the glove of sliding right fielder Dylan Carlson.
The Cardinals cut the lead to 3-2 in the third inning. Carlson beat the fielding shift with a bunt single. Nolan Arenado hit a two-out single, then Tyler O’Neill and Yadier Molina hit RBI singles to cut into the Cubs’ margin.
The Cubs pushed their lead to 4-2 in the fourth inning against Luis Garcia, who just signed with the Cardinals as a free agent.
Garcia started off by hitting Contreras in the head with a pitch. A one-out single by Anthony Rizzo and a two-out RBI single by Ian Happ made Garcia pay.
The Cubs exploited the wildness of reliever Genesis Cabrera in the seventh inning. Cabrera walked Happ and Pederson, then hit Jason Heyward with one out.
Junior Fernandez replaced Cabrera and allowed Bryant’s pinch-hit, bases-clearing double. Wisdom blasted his homer off Fernandez to make it 9-2.
Heyward’s RBI single in the eighth inning made it 10-2. Paul Goldschmidt’s run-scoring single and DeJong’s homer cut the lead to 10-5 in the ninth inning.
–Field Level Media