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Phillies take hot bats to St. Louis

Jun 19, 2014 - 2:14 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - The Philadelphia Phillies muscled their way to a sweep to begin a seven-game road trip and hope to keep their bats hot on Thursday night in the first of four straight meetings with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Phillies plated 21 runs in a three-game sweep of the Braves, their first in Atlanta since 2011, and registered a season-high 18 hits in Wednesday's 10-5 win.

Ryan Howard, Marlon Byrd and John Mayberry Jr. combined to drive in eight of those runs, with Howard finishing with three hits and Byrd hitting his 11th homer of the season.

That helped Philadelphia win for the seventh time in nine games.

"You definitely want to handle these types of games against division rivals," said Howard. "It's a step in the right direction."

The Phillies now will try to avoid a stumble in St. Louis, where they were outscored 18-5 in a three-game sweep the last time they visited the Cardinals on July 23-25 of last year.

Perhaps a fresh face will help as Philly is set to give David Buchanan his sixth career start in tonight's opener.

Buchanan snapped a three-start losing streak with a 7-4 decision over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday, though he lasted just five innings. He allowed three runs, but it could have been worse as all came on solo homers.

The right-hander has struck out 17 over his last three starts and won his first game since his MLB debut on May 24. He is 2-3 with a 5.97 earned run average, losing both of his road starts while posting an 8.25 ERA.

The 25-year-old Buchanan faces the Cardinals for the first time.

St. Louis sits second in the NL Central and is looking to make up some ground on the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. The Cards did just that with a recent five-game winning streak, though that run came to an end with Wednesday's 3-2 loss to the New York Mets in the finale of a three-game series.

"Obviously sweeps are better than winning two-out-of-three," said the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter, who homered in the setback. "But at the end of the day, we won another series, and if we can continue that and win the rest of them, we'll be happy with how that works out."

Shelby Miller has hit a groove over his last two starts and brings a 7-5 record and 3.42 ERA into tonight's outing for the Cardinals.

Miller snapped a three-start slide with a three-hit shutout of Toronto on June 7, then faced Washington on Saturday and got a no-decision. The right-hander allowed a run on four hits and four walks over 6 2/3 innings, also striking out seven.

Miller is set to face the Phillies for the second time in his career, with the 23-year-old beating them in St. Louis on July 23 of last year. He hurled six scoreless innings of three-hit ball, striking out six to just one walk.