PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Phillies finally got a victory from a starting pitcher. And Adam Morgan might have been the most unlikely candidate to break their monthlong drought.

Winless in the minors this year, Morgan won his major league debut in surprising style, outpitching Michael Wacha and leading Philadelphia past the St. Louis Cardinals 9-2 Sunday.

“I’m just very, very happy for the opportunity. Very grateful,” Morgan said. “I didn’t want to try to do too much or overthink. The main thing was keeping the ball down.”

Morgan (1-0) allowed one run and six hits in 5 2/3 innings, striking out six and walking two against the team with the best record in the majors.

The 25-year-old lefty had been 0-6 in 13 starts at Triple-A this season, and was 13-28 lifetime in the minors. He was called up before the game to pitch in place of Jerome Williams, who’s out with a strained left hamstring.

Morgan snapped a club-record 25-game stretch without a win for a Phillies starter dating to May 23, a string that stretched from Memorial Day to Father’s Day.

With his dad, mom and fiancee in the stands, Morgan said he was determined not to get overcome by the moment. He said he “looked down the whole game” until he was taken out.

“Morgan really stepped up with the opportunity,” Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said. “He showed a lot of composure out there and was terrific.”

“He controlled the baseball, had good fastball command on both sides of the plate. He had a real good look as if he was under control right from the get-go. He was impressive and fun to watch.”

Sandberg said Morgan earned another start.

Morgan got the first two batters in the sixth before a single by Jason Heyward and walk to Jon Jay. The crowd of 30,423 booed Sandberg when he pulled Morgan with a 5-1 lead, and reliever Luis Garcia retired Tony Cruz on a grounder to end the inning.

Wacha (9-3) gave up five runs and eight hits in five innings.

“They made me pay for my mistakes,” Wacha said. “I just didn’t have it today.”

Wacha entered tied for the major league lead with six road wins, going 6-1 with 2.08 ERA in eight road starts.

“He’s been real good for us,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. “It was just one of those days.”

Andres Blanco homered while Ben Revere and Maikel Franco each got three hits for the Phillies in their highest-scoring game of the season.

“Guys played amazing defense and were swinging the bats great,” Morgan said. “It was a great team win.”

The Phillies won for just the second time in 13 games. Ranked at or near the bottom of the league in several offensive categories, they were outscored 22-5 in losing the first two games of the series.

“We had offense up and down the lineup,” Sandberg said.

Heyward and Jhonny Peralta homered for the Cardinals, who lost for the first time in their last six games against Philadelphia.

“We missed a couple of opportunities early,” Matheny said. “It’s tough to keep scoring after a couple of big-run games. It’s going to slow down a little.”

The Phillies scored three times in the second on Cody Asche’s RBI double and Cesar Hernandez’s two-run single.

After Peralta upped his team-leading homer total to 11 with a solo shot leading off the fourth, the Phillies scored twice in the fifth on an RBI double by Franco and a single by Ryan Howard.

Blanco had a three-run, pinch-hit homer in the seventh.

HOT HEYWARD

Heyward homered off Jonathan Papelbon leading off the ninth. He is batting .550 (11-for-20) in his last five games.

“I don’t know what else we could ask for the way he’s hitting the ball,” Matheny said.

PINCH-HIT PRO

Blanco went deep for the second time as a pinch-hitter this season and leads the majors with seven pinch-hit extra-base hits.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Phillies: LHP Cole Hamels threw a bullpen session without a problem. He remains on schedule to start Wednesday’s game against the Yankees. The Philadelphia ace missed his last start on Friday due to a strained hamstring.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: St. Louis is off on Monday and will resume play at Miami on Tuesday night when Cardinals RHP Carlos Martinez (7-3, 2.80) opposes Jose Urena (1-3, 4.18).

Phillies: RHP Kevin Correia (0-1, 1.69) start Monday night at Yankee Stadium against Michael Pineda (8-3, 3.54). Correia, who will be making his third start for the Phillies, is winless with a 1.35 ERA in two career outings against the Yankees.

— Associated Press —

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Randal Grichuk hit two home runs, doubled and drove in four runs, and John Lackey pitched seven strong innings to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a 10-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday night.

Lackey (6-4) allowed one run on five hits to earn his first victory on the road this season away from Busch Stadium. He entered 0-3 with a 6.27 ERA in six road starts.

Jason Heyward had three hits with a double and two RBI, Jhonny Peralta had three singles with an RBI, and Yadier Molina singled, doubled and drove in a run for the Cardinals, who won their seventh in nine games while beating Philadelphia for the fifth straight time. The Cardinals pounded out 16 hits, tying their season-high set in Friday’s 12-4 win over Philadelphia.

Cody Asche homered for the Phillies, who have lost 11 of 12.

Aaron Harang (4-9) lost his sixth straight start for the first time in his career, giving up four runs on seven hits in six innings. Harang struck out six and walked one. The right-hander dropped to 7-17 in 29 career starts against St. Louis.

Phillies starters extended their club-record winless streak to 25 games. The last win for a Philadelphia starter came on May 23. Since then, they are 0-16 with a 5.97 ERA.

Grichuk sent Harang to the defeat with a 427-foot drive in the sixth inning. After Heyward and Molina singled leading off the frame, Grichuk drove them in by belting his fifth homer of season deep into the Phillies bullpen in center field.

Philadelphia had taken a 1-0 in the second on Asche’s solo shot to right.

But Lackey limited the Phillies to just four hits over the next 5 1/3 scoreless innings.

The Cardinals tied it in the fourth on Molina’s RBI double to left field. Peralta scored from first when Asche misplayed the ball in left field, thinking it was going to carom off the railing down the line before watching it carry to the corner.

Heyward’s two-run double highlighted St. Louis’ four-run eighth inning. The runs were charged to Seth Rosin, who was making his Phillies debut after being called up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley in place of right-hander Phillippe Aumont. Aumont was designated for assignment after allowing six runs in four innings on Friday.

Grichuk led off the ninth with a solo shot to left off Rosin, marking his first multi-homer game of his career. He also homered on Friday.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: RHP Lance Lynn, on the DL since June 8, threw a bullpen session on Saturday to test his right forearm strain. The Cardinals will assess Lynn’s condition on Sunday, and then determine when he might be able to return to the rotation.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: RHP Michael Wacha (9-2, 2.48) looks to continue his road success when he takes the mound for the series finale Sunday afternoon. Wacha is 6-1 with a 2.08 ERA in eight road starts this season.

Phillies: LHP Adam Morgan will make his big-league debut on Sunday, filling in for injured No. 3 starter Jerome Williams (left hamstring strain). Morgan was winless in 13 starts at Triple-A Lehigh Valley, going 0-6 with a 4.74 ERA.

— Associated Press —

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Randal Grichuk homered and had three hits, and Kolten Wong and Yadier Molina also went deep as the St. Louis Cardinals set season highs for runs and hits in a 12-4 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night.

The Cardinals avoided their second three-game losing streak of the season while breaking out of the offensive funk that followed Tuesday’s news of a federal investigation into whether club officials illegally hacked into the Houston Astros’ player database.

The Cardinals batted .211 with five runs in the first three games after the story broke. If the investigation had any bearing on the lackluster offense, they certainly put it out of their minds against the Phillies.

St. Louis pounded out 16 hits, including six for extra bases. Jhonny Peralta doubled and had three RBI, Mark Reynolds had a two-run double and 10 Cardinals got hits.

Ryan Howard homered for Philadelphia, which snapped a nine-game losing streak on Thursday. The last-place Phillies sank 23 games under .500.

Tyler Lyons (2-0) won his second straight game after going 13 consecutive starts without a win dating back to 2013. He earned a victory Saturday over the Royals and cruised to his latest one behind double-digit run support.

Lyons allowed three runs and seven hits in five innings with five strikeouts and one walk. He also helped himself with the bat, singling twice with an RBI and scoring three runs.

Phillippe Aumont (0-1) struggled in a spot start for injured Philadelphia ace Cole Hamels, allowing six runs and five hits in four innings.

It was the first career start for Aumont, who entered 1-5 with a 6.13 ERA in 45 big league relief appearances. He switched to a starting role this spring in an attempt to improve his command and had some success in the minors, going 3-4 with a 2.35 ERA in 14 outings (10 starts). But against the Cardinals, Aumont walked seven and threw a wild pitch. Forty-eight of his 104 pitches were balls.

Two-run homers by Wong and Molina highlighted a four-run second inning that gave the Cardinals a 4-0 lead. In the fourth, Peralta drove in Matt Carpenter and Lyons — both of whom walked — to put St. Louis up by six. And the Cardinals scored five runs on six hits against Justin De Fratus in the fifth.

Aumont and De Fratus combined to throw 162 pitches in six innings, 67 of which were balls.

Howard homered for the second straight game, putting the Phillies on the board with a three-run shot in the fifth. A Missouri native whose favorite team growing up was the Cardinals, Howard homered for the 21st time in 62 career games against St. Louis.

Phillies starters have gone 24 straight games without a victory, dating to May 23. They are 0-15 with a 5.97 ERA during that stretch.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: Manager Mike Matheny said there’s no timetable for the return of RHP Lance Lynn (forearm), who has been on the DL since June 8.

Phillies: Hamels indicated he will make his next scheduled start Wednesday against the Yankees. Hamels missed Friday’s turn with a strained right hamstring.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: RHP John Lackey (5-4, 3.59 ERA) looks for his first road win of the season Saturday night in the middle game of the series. Lackey is 0-3 with a 6.49 ERA in 11 starts away from home.

Phillies: RHP Aaron Harang (4-8, 3.24) will try to halt a five-game losing streak. Harang, whose last win came on May 15, has a 6.07 ERA during his skid. He is 7-16 with a 4.39 ERA in 28 starts against St. Louis.

— Associated Press —

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Twins have been struggling to score this month, with Joe Mauer and Kennys Vargas at the top of the slump list.

Well, guess who hit the home runs to tie and win the game in the last two innings?

Vargas hit a solo shot with two outs in the bottom of the ninth Thursday, lifting the Twins to a 2-1 victory and a two-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals.

“It’s always fun to get out there and jump around,” said Mauer, who went deep in the eighth to answer Jason Heyward’s solo shot for the Cardinals in the seventh.

Arriving at home on the first game-ending hit of his career at any level, Vargas was showered with water and a bucket of bubble gum in celebration. He grounded into two double plays, ruining a bases-loaded rally on one of those with one out in the seventh inning, and he’s only 5 for 27 since being recalled from Triple-A Rochester.

Before the game, Twins manager Paul Molitor pulled Vargas aside by the batting cage and encouraged him to refocus on having fun.

“You hope it takes some of the weight off that he’s been carrying,” Molitor said.

It sailed into the right-field seats on a slow 1-1 curveball from Carlos Villanueva (3-2).

“It’s, for me, something special that I’m going to remember all my life,” Vargas said.

Villanueva said he tried to throw the pitch on the outside of the plate so Vargas would chase it.

“The ball came back over the middle,” Villanueva said.

St. Louis lost for the first time in 35 games this year when leading after seven innings.

“It was just challenge time at that point, and their guy came out on top,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said.

Minnesota won for the first time in 25 games this season when trailing after seven innings. For Mauer, this was his third home run of the season, all of which have tied the game or given the Twins the lead. The three-time batting champion’s once-sparkling average had fallen to .250 before he took Kevin Siegrist deep.

“I try to make `em count when I do hit `em,” Mauer said.

The six-time All-Star said his swing hasn’t “felt that bad” the last couple of weeks. Hitting one into the left-field seats was one way to beat those shifts.

“Nobody can catch a ball out there,” Mauer said.

Blaine Boyer (2-2) pitched the ninth for the victory, after eight dominant innings by Mike Pelfrey in an old-fashioned duel with Jaime Garcia.

St. Louis still has baseball’s best record by a comfortable margin, but the lineup has slumped lately with only 11 runs in the last five games. The Cardinals were shut out in three of Garcia’s first five starts since returning from surgery last summer to alleviate numbness and tingling in his left arm and hand.

Garcia pitched into the seventh, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out four and lowering his ERA to 1.76. Seth Maness bailed him out in the seventh after a walk and a single to start the inning, getting Vargas to ground weakly to shortstop for the double play.

PELFREY’S REBOUND

Pelfrey bounced back authoritatively from his worst start of the season, when he allowed 11 hits and eight runs over 3 2/3 innings at Texas. He gave up four hits and one walk while striking out three, the home run by Heyward the only blemish.

“For it to be 0-0 before that, it made it a little bit frustrating, but overall I thought it was a lot better,” Pelfrey said.

Pelfrey got Heyward to ground into a double play earlier on the same count and pitch as the home run, matching teammate Kyle Gibson for the major league lead in groundball double plays induced with 16. Pelfrey lowered his ERA to 2.97.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: RHP Lance Lynn (strained forearm) has been playing catch, but Matheny hasn’t reached the point of seeking daily updates, a sign that Lynn still has a ways to go. “He’s just progressing nicely,” Matheny said.

Twins: RHP Ervin Santana, serving an 80-game suspension for a positive test for a performance-enhancing substance, will make three rehabilitation starts for Triple-A Rochester beginning on Saturday. “If all goes well, we’ll have a decision to make,” general manager Terry Ryan said.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: The Cardinals continue their road trip in Philadelphia on Friday, with Tyler Lyons starting opposite Cole Hamels of the Phillies.

Twins: The Twins host the Chicago Cubs on Friday, with Phil Hughes taking the mound against Kyle Hendricks.

— Associated Press —

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Tommy Milone gave up one run in seven innings and the Minnesota Twins squeaked out a 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night.

Milone (3-1) gave up five hits and struck out five and Eduardo Nunez had two hits and two RBI to help the reeling Twins, who had lost seven of their previous eight games.

Carlos Martinez (7-3) gave up two runs — one earned — on five hits and struck out six in 6 2/3 innings for the Cardinals, who are embroiled in a federal investigation into allegations that members of the team’s baseball operations hacked into the Houston Astros’ personnel database.

The Cardinals had two runners on with no outs in the ninth, but Glen Perkins struck out Mark Reynolds and Randal Grichuk and got Yadier Molina to ground out to improve to 23 for 23 in save tries.

The Cardinals have spent the last two days swimming in deep water after news broke that the FBI was conducting an investigation into the hacking allegations involving a database compiled by former Cardinals executive Jeff Luhnow, now the Astros’ GM.

Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt and GM John Mozeliak responded forcefully on Wednesday, saying that they had no knowledge of any such actions and were conducting an internal review of their own to get to determine if there was any truth to the allegations.

Until then, Mozeliak and manager Mike Matheny vowed not to let the headline-grabbing allegations, which have called into question the integrity of one of baseball’s model franchises, distract the team from the torrid pace it has set to start this season. The Cardinals entered the game with the best record in the big leagues, having beaten the Twins at home on Tuesday on the day the investigation was revealed by the New York Times.

They jumped on Milone in the second inning, getting an RBI single from Jason Heyward for a 1-0 lead.

But Mark Reynolds was charged with an error for being unable to scoop a low pickoff attempt from Martinez at first base, which allowed Trevor Plouffe to score from third and put Eddie Rosario in position to score on a sacrifice fly from Eduardo Nunez to give the Twins a 2-1 lead in the fourth.

A combination of the Cardinals’ enthusiastic fan base and the home debut of highly touted Twins prospect Byron Buxton led to an announced crowd of 34,381, the third-largest of the season at Target Field.

Buxton went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts, but did make a nice running catch at the warning track in the third inning.

Struggling star Joe Mauer was moved from third in the order to second. He had a double in the first inning, but struck out twice, including with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Twins: GM Terry Ryan said RHP Ricky Nolasco, on the disabled list with an ankle injury, was being fitted for orthotics. The club was hopeful that the orthotics would help relieve what has been a recurring for issue for him.

UP NEXT

The Twins send RHP Mike Pelfrey (5-3, 3.18) to the mound to finish the four-game split series against LHP Jaime Garcia (2-3, 2.06). Pelfrey had been a pleasant surprise for the Twins through 11 starts, but was tagged for eight runs on 11 hits in a loss to the Rangers his last time out. Garcia missed the first 40 games while recovering from thoracic outlet surgery. He has not walked a batter in his last four starts.

— Associated Press —