Aaron Miles hit a grand slam walk off home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to life the Cardinals to their fifth straight win and series sweep, 9-5 over the San Diego Padres.
Jaime Garcia made his major league debut for the Cardinals and didn’t figure in the decision thanks again to another late inning rally by the Cardinals. In fact, make that two rallies.
Garcia pitched five innings and left trailing 3-1. In the bottom of the 7th, St. Louis made it a 3-2 game, then in the bottom of the 8th Troy Glaus hit a three run homer to give the Cards at 5-3 lead.
Jason Isringhausen was brought on to close the game in the 9th after Ryan Franklin pitched two innings to save Saturday’s game. Neither Izzy or Brad Thompson could hold the lead, as the Padres tied the game with two in the ninth.
With one out in the bottom of the 9th, Albert Pujols walked. Padres catcher Luke Carlin threw wild trying to pick off Pujols who made it safely to third. LaRussa then pinch hit for Thompson by bringing in Molina who was intentionally walked by pitcher Bryan Corey, who then intentionally walked Skip Schumaker to set up a force out an any base.
That set up Miles who launched a 2-1 pitch to right field for the winner.