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Pineiro strong again as Cards top Reds

Apr 30, 2008 - 5:19 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- Johnny Cueto's major league debut still has his fans salivating over his potential. Lately, however, it has been Joel Pineiro that has been getting the results.

Pineiro allowed just one hit over seven innings and Rick Ankiel had three hits to power the St. Louis Cardinals to a 7-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday.

Pineiro (2-2) yielded only a single to lead off the game to Corey Patterson, striking out three batters to win his second straight start.

"I keep saying it's a great team win," Pineiro said. "They hit a lot of balls hard right at people. It's one of those days where I got lucky. My location early in the game was a little erratic but I was able to come back and, like I said, trust my defense."

The righthander had opened the season with losses in consecutive starts against San Francisco, but he has turned it around in two games since. In his last turn, the righthander yielded one run and four hits over seven frames in Thursday's 6-2 win over Pittsburgh.

St. Louis scored seven runs in the first two innings, including three in the first, to make life easier on Pineiro. After Skip Schumaker singled and Adam Kennedy walked, Ankiel lined an RBI double off Cueto (1-3) to deep right-center field before scoring himself on a single from Troy Glaus.

Schumaker and Kennedy each singled to start the four-run second. With two outs, Ankiel singled home a run and Glaus, who followed with a two-run double, came around to score when left fielder Adam Dunn committed a throwing error.

"I made the decision to go to third on my own and then, obviously from there, (third base coach) Jose (Oquendo) waved me in," Glaus said. "Keep going, don't fall. Just keep going, that's it. If he's waving you, you're going. You don't see too many people stop on go signs."

That marked the end of the evening for Cueto, who surrendered seven runs - six earned - and eight hits over 1 2/3 innings in his sixth career start.

"He was just behind in the count, which is surprising for him," Reds catcher Paul Bako said. "He was a little wild at times and wild in the zone. Just chalk it up to one of those days. It's a long season and obviously today was not his day or our day. Especially the way we swung the bats and had nothing to show for it."

The uncharacteristic performance extended Cueto's winless streak to five games. It came as even more of a surprise after he allowed just one hit and struck out 10 over seven innings in his major league debut on April 3 against Arizona.

"His stuff is still good," Reds manager Dusty Baker said. "He was throwing strikes; he just wasn't throwing quality strikes. I talked to the umpire and he told me that his stuff is still good, it's just poor location. It's a big game tomorrow."

Cincinnati avoided a shutout with two outs in the ninth when Dunn crushed a fastball from reliever Anthony Reyes over the fence in center for a two-run homer, his fourth of the season.

Schumaker tied his career best with four hits and Albert Pujols extended his on-base streak to 28 games - despite going 0-for-4 - when he drew a walk off Reds reliever Josh Fogg in the eighth.

"I know I was feeling OK at the plate and that's the main thing," Schumaker said. "You can't control the hits but you can control the at-bats. And I feel like I've taken some pretty good at-bats."