The St. Louis Cardinals scored seven times in the fourth inning off Cincinnati Reds’ starter Mike Leake, including Skip Schumaker’s first career grand slam as the Cardinals close to within one game of the NL Central Division lead with a 7-3 win Monday night.
Chris Carpenter picked up his 13th win of the season and ninth in a row over the Reds, which is tied for the most consecutive wins by a pitcher of one team among active players. (Derek Lowe, with Atlanta has nine against the Pirates).
Carpenter was a little hot under the collar right from the very beginning on a muggy 90 degree night and he took his frustration out on the Reds tossing seven innings allowing two runs. Carp was not very happy with shortstop Brendan Ryan. Ryan had to run back into the dugout right before Carpenter was ready to throw his first pitch to switch gloves. Ryan got a stare down and a talking to in the tunnel from Carpenter after the first inning. Then, in the bottom of the seventh, Carpenter yelled in frustration and gave Ryan another stare down when it appeared Ryan was playing out of position on an outside fastball that was slapped into a big hole between short and third for an RBI single.
That seven run fourth inning for the Cardinals was horrible for Leake as he allowed six straight hits to start the inning and after getting his second out, a strike out of Brendan Ryan, he started trotting off the field. Leake returned for one more batter and was finally saved by manager Dusty Baker.
Jim Edmonds made his debut with Cincinnati and went 0 for 4 with a strikeout.
