Cardinals stretch winning streak to 8 straight

Adam Wainwright pitched into the eighth inning and homered Wednesday night, helping the St. Louis Cardinals run their home winning streak to seven with a 5-4 victory over visiting Milwaukee.

Albert Pujols contributed with his bat and glove. He hit an early 2-run double, then made a leaping catch at first base in the ninth to prevent Milwaukee from tying it.

Rick Ankiel drew an extraordinary 17-pitch walk, Skip Schumaker gave the Cardinals a second homer from an unlikely source and St. Louis matched its longest home winning streak since 2005 at the old Busch Stadium.

Cardinals closer Jason Isringhausen took a 5-2 lead into the ninth, but RBI doubles by J.J. Hardy and pinch hitter Craig Counsell closed the gap with one out.

St. Louis is 7-1 at home this season, losing only on Opening Day. The Cardinals' 11-4 record is tied with Arizona for the best in the majors.

D'backs 4, Giants 1: Brandon Webb and visiting Arizona beat San Francisco and struggling lefty Barry Zito in a matchup featuring a pair of former Cy Young Award winners who seem to be headed in different directions.

Webb (4-0) hit an early 2-run single and made it stand up. The 2006 NL Cy Young winner gave up 3 hits over 8 innings and won his sixth straight decision since last September.

Astros 2, Phillies 1: Roy Oswalt snapped out of an early funk with 7 strong innings, and Michael Bourn hit a tiebreaking solo homer for visiting Houston in a win over Philadelphia.

Bourn connected off Kyle Kendrick (1-2) in the fifth inning to help beat his former teammates a night after the Phillies scored 4 runs off closer Jose Valverde to win in the bottom of the ninth.

Marlins 6, Braves 5: Mike Jacobs hit his sixth home run, and Luis Gonzalez added a 2-run pinch homer to lead surprising Florida past visiting Atlanta.

Tim Hudson (2-1) lasted only 3 innings for the Braves, who lost their third in a row and fell to 0-7 in 1-run games. They're 2-7 on the road.

Mets 5, Nationals 2: Carlos Beltran hit his first homer of the season, a 3-run shot in New York's 4-run fifth inning, to back John Maine's solid start and lead the host Mets past Washington.

Jose Reyes also connected for the first time, and Ryan Church hit his second home run to help New York hand the anemic Nationals their 11th loss in 12 games.

American League

Tigers 13, Indians 2: Edgar Renteria hit a grand slam, and Miguel Cabrera also homered and drove in 5 runs as resurgent Detroit roughed up host Cleveland and struggling Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia.

Cabrera finished with 4 hits, and Renteria's fifth-inning slam capped Detroit's offensive outburst against Sabathia (0-3), who has a 13.50 ERA after four outings. That's one big reason for Cleveland's slow start -- the Indians (5-10) have lost three straight and eight of 11.

With newcomers Renteria and Cabrera finding their strokes, Detroit's loaded lineup has broken loose after an early slump. The Tigers have scored 30 runs while winning their past three games following a 2-10 start.

After failing in 2 starts during the 2007 AL championship series against Boston, then opening this year with three poor performances, Sabathia was looking to get untracked against the Tigers, Cleveland's AL Central rival.

Instead, he was soundly booed as he walked slowly to the dugout after giving up 9 runs, 8 hits and 5 walks over 4-plus innings.

Twins 6, Rays 5: Mike Lamb hit a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the eighth inning that Carl Crawford caught in foul territory, and host Minnesota beat Tampa Bay.

Delmon Young, a former Rays standout who came to the Twins in an off-season trade, led off the eighth with a single and reached third on Brendan Harris' one-out bloop single.

Lamb's flyball was slicing toward foul ground, and left fielder Crawford slid and caught it about four feet in foul territory, allowing Young to score easily.

Yankees 15, Red Sox 9:ΠLong after Alex Rodriguez hit his 522nd home run to pass Ted Williams and Willie McCovey for 15th place on the career list, Melky Cabrera's tiebreaking groundout in a 4-run fifth inning helped host New York outlast Boston in a glacially paced game that took 4 hours, 8 minutes.

The 24 runs were the most in a Red Sox-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium since New York's 19-8 win in the second game of a doubleheader on Aug. 13, 1940, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.