Randal Grichuk and Matt Holliday hit consecutive homers in the first for the Cardinals, who had only five hits, but beat Cincinnati 2-1 behind a solid pitching performance from John Lackey. St. Louis keeps a 2.5 game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates with eight games remaining.
Lackey was the eighth straight starter to allow no more than one earned run. Coming off a skipped spot in the rotation and an early ejection in his last start against the Reds, Lackey went 7.2 innings, allowing six hits while striking out five.
Trevor Rosenthal, Randy Choate and Seth Maness had to pitch the ninth to save the game.
