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Schumaker's homer lifts Cardinals over Red Sox

Jun 21, 2008 - 4:42 AM By Brian Devine PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BOSTON (Ticker) -- Skip Schumaker snapped a tie with a two-run homer and Kyle Lohse pitched a six effective innings to help the St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Boston Red Sox, 5-4, on Friday night.

Ryan Franklin pitched the final two innings to earn his 10th save for the Cardinals, who snapped a three-game slide.

With a runner on second in the seventh and the score knotted at 2-2, Schumaker sent the first pitch from Tim Wakefield into the Red Sox bullpen to put St. Louis on top. It was the fifth home run for Schumaker and third in his last 14 starts.

"I wasn't waiting around for Wakefield anymore, I did that the first couple of at-bats and I was 0-1 for my first three at-bats," Schumaker said. "You get behind on him and it is not fun. That (knuckleball) is just going everywhere and you don't know when to swing, so I didn't want to wait around and I was fortunate to get a ball a little bit up and did something with it."

"I made one mistake, it cost us the game," Wakefield said of Schumaker's home run. "It's one of those things. He swung at the first pitch, it is the last thing I expected to happen."

Lohse (9-2) gave up two runs and struck out four en route to his sixth consecutive victory and first career win against Boston in seven games. The righthander allowed six hits and walked two while striking out four.

"It was a tough outing," Lohse said. "With this park anything can happen. You have to stay locked in and I was able to do that and make good pitches when I needed them."

"I mean he consistently takes good stuff out there and consistently has good location and consistently competes. He's got as many weapons as about any starter around," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said of Lohse.

The Red Sox capitalized early on an error by Cesar Izturis, who later left the game due to a right hamstring strain. Manny Ramirez walked to start the inning and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Julio Lugo to give Boston an early 1-0 advantage.

St. Louis threatened in the fourth inning, but after loading the bases with one out, Wakefield (4-5) got Yadier Molina to line out to third and retired Adam Kennedy on a flyout to left field.

In the fifth inning, catcher Jason LaRue tied the game at 1-1 with a solo home run over the "Green Monster."

"I was just looking for a pitch that was up in the zone and I was able to get two pitches up in the zone tonight and hit them well," LaRue said.

Lohse worked his magic in the fifth inning, working his way out of a bases-loaded jam by striking out Ramirez and getting Mike Lowell to ground out to the shortstop.

"I think the at-bat when I got Ramirez out with the bases loaded, that was probably one of the bigger outs I have gotten so far and it just feels good to be able to make those pitches and get out of those situations," Lohse said.

St. Louis quickly countered in the top of the sixth to take a 2-1 lead. Rick Ankiel led off with a double to left-center field and came around to score after a pair of throwing errors by Lugo.

Lugo quickly redeemed himself in the bottom of the sixth when he launched his first home run of the year and first since September 22, 2007. Lugo sent the 3-2 offering from Lohse over the left field wall to tie the game at 2-2.

"We had some opportunities, some guys right in the middle of the order we had up and let them get off the hook a couple of times." Boston manager Terry Francona said about leaving 11 men on base.