Cardinals beat Reds 9-2 and avoid sweep

St. Louis, which has already clinched its franchise-best fifth consecutive postseason appearance, holds a four-game lead over division-rival Pittsburgh.Tommy Pham scored a run to ignite an eighth-inning rally in Monday’s 2-1 win and is 11-for-27 with four homers and 10 RBIs in his last seven contests.

Cincinnati Reds’ Todd Frazier (21) ducks away from a high inside pitch, thrown by St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Michael Wacha, during the fourth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, September 13, 2015, in Cincinnati. John Lamb, sporting a 1-3 record and 5.35 ERA coming in, struck out six and never seemed to feel the pressure of six St. Louis runners through six innings.

Lamb left with a 1-0 lead, but earned a no-decision after J.J. Hoover allowed two runs in the bottom of the eighth on three hits.

When the eighth inning began, the Cardinals hadn’t scored a run against Reds pitchers in Busch Stadium in 29 innings.

In a game that felt a lot more like an October contest than it had any right to, Monday’s tilt between the Cards and Reds was tight from start to finish, and closed with rookies doing the heavy lifting.

Key hits from rookies helped the St. Louis Cardinals get to the Reds bullpen before Cincinnati could get to Aroldis Chapman.

On a single with fast runner Jason Bourgeois on second, Randal Grichuk deked him by totally nonchalantly tossing the ball back in to second, just completely deeming Bourgeois beneath his notice.

He walked Jason Bourgeois on a full count to open the game and Votto singled with one out.

“It was a tough inning, but stuff happens”, Garcia said.

It’s credit to the Cardinals’ team approach that they don’t have any players mentioned as candidates for the National League Most Valuable Player Award.

“As big of a mess as you could put yourself in, just keep trying to make pitches”, Rosenthal said after working around two one-hit singles. Both Votto and Phillips moved up on another wild pitch.

Stephen Piscotty doubled to deep left; Bourjos scored. He is 1 for 7 since hitting that home run. He also went 0 for 4 at the plate.

After Starlin Castro led off the ninth with a single, pinch runner Quintin Berry was inserted with the intent to steal second. Catcher Yadier Molina suffered a sprained thumb in the series finale on Sunday at Chicago.

“It’s mixed emotions because our team didn’t come away with the win, but I’m excited with how I pitched”, Lamb said.

Iglesias allowed two earned runs and five hits in five innings.

“I started the game really good with two aggressive strikes, then tried to do a little too much”, the lefty said.

Iglesias had cruised through the first 4 innings of the game, but he ran into trouble in the Top of the 5th.