If the Cardinals aren’t thinking much about the regular season, you sure couldn’t tell by watching the way they played on Monday. The Redbirds got some late dramatics to beat the Cubs 6-4 at Busch.

With the score tied 2-2 in the eighth inning, Albert Pujols blasted a three-run homer—his 36th of the year—to give St. Louis a 5-2 lead. Jim Edmonds followed up with his 25th home run to make it 6-2.

However, the game was far from over. In the top of the ninth inning, reliever Jason Isringhausen gave up three straight singles to start the inning, then walked Jerry Hairston to give the Cubs a run. Isringhausen was pulled for Julian Tavarez, who traded the first out of the inning for a run, when he got Jose Macias to pop out to center. Corey Patterson scored from third on the sacrifice. Then with one of baseball’s most dangerous hitters at the plate, Tavarez buckled down and got Derrek Lee to ground into a double play to end the game.

Ray King, who got the final two outs of the eighth inning got the win, improving to 4-2, while Tavarez got the save. Starter Jeff Suppan lasted six innings and allowed two runs off four hits and a walk.

The Cardinals scored two runs in the fifth inning when Abraham Nunez singled in Suppan. Later in the inning David Eckstein scored on a wild pitch.

The win cut the Cardinals’ magic number to 11 games.