Matt Holliday watches his grand slam in the fourth inning.

Matt Holliday watches his grand slam in the fourth inning.

Holliday hit his sixth career grand slam off White Sox starter Carlos Rodonin the fourth inning, leading the Cardinals past Chicago 8-5 on Tuesday night.  Holliday homered for the first time since May 12, his fourth of the season. He just returned on Friday after missing 31 games because of a quadriceps injury.

That gave the Cardinals a 7-0 lead, which ended up being just enough for Michael Wacha, who has struggled this season under the lights.  Entering Tuesday’s game, Wacha’s ERA was 3.52 in ten night starts as opposed to 2.08 in seven day starts.  Wacha gave up five runs in five innings. Wacha retired the first nine he faced before giving five runs over the next two innings.  Mike Matheny pulled him after the fifth inning and 100 pitches.

Back to the offense.  The bats may be finding their groove.  Matt Carpenter, who has been struggling, had two hits.  The homers by Holliday and Mark Reynolds in the fifth stretched the Cardinals streak to seven straight games with a home run, most since 10 straight from July 29-Aug. 7, 2011, according to STLCardinals.com.

Stephen Piscotty, St. Louis’ top hitting prospect, made his major league debut playing left field. He had an infield single in four at-bats and struck out twice.