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Berkman, Pujols go deep as Cards top Cubs

Jun 4, 2011 - 5:19 AM St. Louis, MO (Sports Network) - Lance Berkman and Albert Pujols smashed homers, and Jaime Garcia bounced back from a rough start to pitch eight solid innings in St. Louis' 6-1 victory over Chicago.

Garcia (6-1) was coming off a horrid 3 1/3-inning outing at Colorado, in which he allowed 11 hits and 11 earned runs. The lefty followed that up by yielding just four hits to the Cubs and fanning eight batters.

"[Garcia] had command of all his pitches. He didn't throw many balls in the middle of the plate and had a lot of different variations," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "He was outstanding."

Ryan Dempster (4-5) was pounded for eight hits and six runs over five innings to have his three-decision winning streak snapped.

The Cubs, who totaled five hits, suffered their fourth consecutive defeat.

Ryan Theriot extended his career-best hitting streak to 17 games with a double to right leading off the bottom of the first. Pujols walked with one out, and Berkman followed by blasting a 1-1 offering over the wall in right.

Skip Schumaker scored on a Dempster wild pitch in the fourth before the Cubs got their only run in the fifth on a Lou Montanez double.

"I put us in a hole tonight, and when you do that against a really good pitcher you aren't going to win a lot of games," Dempster said.

Pujols reached a milestone in the bottom of the frame. Jon Jay singled to lead off, and Pujols then homered to left, his 100th of his career at the current Busch Stadium and his 10th overall this season.

The Cubs put two men on base with one out in the eighth, but were turned away on fly outs from Kosuke Fukudome and Darwin Barney.

Game Notes

Theriot has the longest hitting streak for the Cardinals since Juan Encarnacion and So Taguchi each had 17-gamers in 2007...St. Louis is 3-1 this season against the Cubs...Cardinals manager Tony La Russa needs six games managed in regular season play to reach the 5,000 career plateau, joining Connie Mack (7,755) as the only managers/coaches in American professional sports history to have reached that milestone...Garcia has a 0.46 ERA at home this season.