St. Louis Cardinals tug on the jersey of Randal Grichuk when reaching home plate after hitting a walk off home run in the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on May 23, 2016. St. Louis won the game 4-3. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

St. Louis Cardinals tug on the jersey of Randal Grichuk when reaching home plate after hitting a walk off home run in the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on May 23, 2016. St. Louis won the game 4-3. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

Matt Adam’s pinch hit homer in the seventh tied the game, and Randall Grichuk hit his first career walk-off homer to lead the Cardinals back for a 4-3 win over the Chicago Cubs, Monday night at Busch Stadium.  The victory pulls the team back to within six games of the Central Division leaders who have lost three in a row and eight of their last 13, after starting the season 24-6.

Adam Wainwright started and had trouble working with an inconsistent strike zone.  Once again however, Wainwright didn’t look sharp when he needed to be, letting several Cubs off the hook when the Wainwright of old would have been able to bury hitters with counts in his favor.  What resulted was  a 3-1 deficit after 108 pitches in the sixth.

Down 3-1, Adams hit his fifth of the year off to tie the game 3-3 with two outs in the seventh of John Lackey.  Lackey had been cruising up until that point working on nine strikeouts and just hits before Adam’s homer.

NOTE:  The Cardinals are 7-3 in games in which Adam Wainwright starts and his ERA is 5.77. The Cubs are only 5-4 in games Lackey starts this year and his ERA of 3.38 is better than any Cardinals starting pitcher.

The Cubs let Trevor Rosenthal off the hook in the ninth.  Rosenthal opened with Dexter Fowler who singled and advanced to third on a one out single by Ben Zobrist.  With runners on the corner, Rosenthal got Anthony Rizzo to pop up to third baseman Matt Carpenter, who made a diving catch, then crawled over to third to tag the bag, doubling up Fowler who took off for home.  The baserunning blunder came back to bite the Cubs.

The Cubs turned the game over to Adam Warren, who replaced Lackey for the eighth, and was taken deep by Randal Grichuk with two outs in the ninth. (VIDEO-MLB.com)