The St. Louis Cardinals finished a sweep of the Houston Astros on Sunday with an 8-5 win at Busch Stadium. After Matt Morris allowed an RBI single to Jeff Bagwell, the Cardinals put four runs on the board. Albert Pujols got things going with a two-run homer. Reggie Sanders RBI triple made it 3-1 and Mark Grudzielanek gave the Cardinals a 4-1 lead with single to score Sanders.
The Cardinals eventually led 8-2, thanks to Scott Rolen who drove in a run in the second inning and David Eckstein who drove in runs in the third and fifth. In the sixth inning, the Astros were able to score three runs in a strange inning. Jimmy Journell, who relieved Matt Morris, walked in the first run of the inning. Then an error by Eckstein allowed another run to cross the plate.
Then things got strange. Craig Biggio hit a grounder to Scott Rolen, who stepped on third for the first out, then fired over to first, where Biggio was out on the force and Pujols tagged out Willy Taveras, who was standing on first. It was originally called a triple play, but was later reversed to a double play. Taveras thought Rolen caught a line drive, instead of a grounder, and never moved from the bag. Since the Cardinals got the out at first base, the force was off and Taveras, who never left the bag, was safe and a run scored to make it 8-5. Adam Everett grounded out in the next at bat and the inning was over. Neither team scored the rest of the way.
Matt Morris eventually got the win and improved to 2-0 in his two starts this season. . Jason Isringhausen worked a perfect ninth inning to get his seventh save in seven attempts. Eckstein finished 3-for-5 with two RBI’s and two runs. Pujols had two RBI’s and his home run was his fifth of the season. St. Louis has won four in a row and nine of their last ten.
