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The St. Louis Cardinals scored five runs in the first inning and held on for a 7-4 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday. Matt Carpenter, Jhonny Peralta and Yadier Molina all had two hits in support of John Lackey (4-3), who got the win with three runs allowed on 10 hits in seven innings.
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Jimmy Nelson (2-6) allowed all seven Cardinals runs, six earned, in five innings.
Gerardo Parra had four hits, including a solo homer, but the Brewers were without right fielder Ryan Braun, who was away from the team to get an injection in his ailing right thumb.
The Cardinals won the last two games of the three-game series.
They sent all nine batters to the plate in the first inning. The first six reached base, including Peralta and Mark Reynolds with RBI hits. Between those hits, third baseman Hector Gomez's error on a ground ball from Randal Grichuk potentially cost Milwaukee a double play, and Molina and Jason Heyward added to the big inning with sacrifice flies.
Parra's solo home run in the third brought the Brewers within four, but the Cardinals scored their final two runs in the fourth on Carpenter's two-run single.
Gomez's RBI double in the sixth cut Milwaukee's deficit to 7-2, but he was at the center of a scary moment in the bottom half of the inning when he fell face-first into the seats in pursuit of a foul ball he didn't catch.
Gomez left the game as a precaution and tested negative for a concussion, the Brewers said.
St. Louis conceded a run to Milwaukee in the seventh, and the Brewers could have rallied for more if Jonathan Lucroy had not been thrown out trying to stretch his single into a double to end the inning.
The Cardinals called on Mitch Harris to get the last three outs of the game, but a pair of one-out singles from the Brewers forced closer Trevor Rosenthal into the game. Adam Lind's RBI single brought the potential tying run to the plate, but Rosenthal induced a ground-ball double play from Lucroy to record his 17th save.
[SportsNetwork.com]
