Francoeur, Braves come up short in 1-0 loss to Cardinals

St. Louis Cardinals All-Star infielder Matt Carpenter was activated prior to Friday’s game against the Atlanta Braves, the team announced.

Garcia (8-8) frustrated the Braves’ lineup, pitching eight scoreless innings, striking out 11.

Francoeur came up throwing as Matt Holliday tried to score on a two-out single by Jaime Garcia in the bottom of the second.

Seung Hwan Oh pitched a ideal ninth inning to notch his ninth save of the year. But Garcia whiffed Freeman and Kemp, then induced a fielder’s choice bouncer from Adonis Garcia.

“You could tell the breaking ball and change-up were falling off the table, but he went to his sinker whenever he needed to and he wasn’t even in a lot of deep counts”, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. Aside from five walks, De La Cruz pitched a decent game, yielding just two hits and a run in 5 1/3 innings with two strikeouts, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Braves from dropping to 39-70.

“He had all three pitches working tonight”, Francoeur said of Garcia. Ender Inciarte extended his hitting streak to 16 games with a leadoff single in the first inning and has recorded at least one hit in 22 of his last 23 contests.TV: 7:15 p.m. ET, FSN South (Atlanta), FSN Midwest (St. Louis)PITCHING MATCHUPS: Braves RH Roberto Hernandez (2015: 3-5, 4.36 ERA) vs. Cardinals RH Carlos Martinez (10-6, 2.99)Atlanta turns to the journeyman Hernandez, who inked a minor-league contract on July 15 after being signed and released by Toronto twice since December.

In his absence, the Cardinals have gone 27-24, yet are coming off a 5-5 road trip in which they lost four of their last five, including an ugly 7-0 loss to the Reds on Thursday that dropped them into a tie for the second wild-card spot. Braves right fielder Jeff Francoeur thought he had a play on Holliday at the plate.

Left-handed reliever Dean Kiekhefer was optioned to Triple-A Memphis.