Chris Carpenter looked more like a Cy Young award winner than a .500 pitcher against the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday night.

Carpenter (9-9) pitched a four-hitter to record his 14th career shutout in the St. Louis Cardinals’ 2-0 win.

Rafael Furcal provided the offense with a solo home run but Carpenter needed just 2 hours, 5 minutes for his first shutout since he blanked the Brewers 3-0 exactly two years before in Milwaukee. He struck out five and walked two, one intentional.

After losing the series opener on Monday, the Cardinals won the last two to move within 8 1/2 games of the first-place Brewers in the NL Central with 19 games to play.

The Cardinals are 6 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the wild card race with the Braves coming to St. Louis on Friday to start a three-game series. St. Louis won five of its last six against Milwaukee to earn a season series split (9-9).

“Nice win for us,” Carpenter said. “Going into an off day, with a big series coming up, to be able to get that win against a quality pitcher, a quality club we need to beat, it was a nice win all around and obviously I pitched well.”

Carpenter was 1-2 with a 5.68 ERA in three previous starts this season against Milwaukee. He said the difference was being able to locate his fastball.

“If you can locate your fastball on both sides of the plate, you’re going to have success,” Carpenter said. “If you get the ball in the middle of the plate, you’re not.

“I was able to get quick early outs because I was able to get balls on the corner. These guys obviously are a real nice hitting team.”

Corey Hart, who had his 18-game hitting streak snapped, felt his team was the victim more of bad luck than good pitching.

“We hit balls at people,” Hart said. “Sometimes a pitcher has to be a little lucky to win games. He threw the ball well, but if those balls fall, it’s a different story.”

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa saw a different game.

“Real good stuff, real good location, great concentration,” La Russa said of Carpenter. “He was the whole package tonight.”

The benches and bullpens emptied in the top of the ninth after Carpenter (9-9) struck out Nyjer Morgan. The two had words and Morgan headed toward the mound before being restrained by teammate Prince Fielder. No punches were thrown and Morgan was ejected.

“He’s a good player,” Carpenter said. “He’s a serious talent. He just plays the game a different way. I’m not going to play his game.”

Morgan said Carpenter yelled an expletive at him after the strikeout.

“There’s really nothing to explain,” Morgan said. “I was walking off the field until he said (that).

“Just hard ball. It was kind of a quick hook, but whatever.”

The home run was the third for Furcal in the last seven days against Milwaukee. He went deep twice in Milwaukee last week when the Cardinals swept the Brewers.

Jon Jay went 3 for 4 for his fifth straight multihit game and he has 11 hits in his last 17 at-bats. Albert Pujols was 2 for 4 but grounded into his major league-leading 27th double play.

Lance Berkman doubled to lead off the fourth against Milwaukee’s Zach Greinke (14-6) and scored the game’s first run on Yadier Molina’s sacrifice fly one out later.

Furcal made it 2-0 by leading off the fifth with his seventh home run.

Greinke went seven innings and allowed two runs and eight hits with four strikeouts.

— Associated Press —

Randy Wolf followed a “horrible” outing against St. Louis with one of his best of the season.

The left-hander allowed one run over eight innings and Ryan Braun and Nyjer Morgan homered to lead the Milwaukee Brewers to a 4-1 victory over the Cardinals on Monday.

The Brewers won their fourth straight to move 10 1/2 games ahead of St. Louis in the NL Central, tying their largest lead of the season.

Wolf (12-9) gave up four hits, struck out five and walked two as he improved to 6-1 with a 3.11 ERA in his last eight starts. He allowed two hits over his final six innings and helped his bounce-back effort with two infield singles.

Just five days earlier, Wolf gave up six earned runs and lasted five innings in an 8-3 loss to the Cardinals in Milwaukee, a performance he called, “horrible.”

“That was a tough one to swallow,” Wolf said. “It was rough.”

The eight-inning stint ties Wolf’s longest outing of the season and he erased the memory of his only bad performance during this current eight-start run.

“I just wanted to concentrate on slowing my body down,” Wolf said. “Today, my body was in a position where I could throw off-speed pitches in any count.”

Braun said Wolf looked like a totally different pitcher.

“He made some adjustments and really did a great job,” Braun said. “It starts with our starting pitching and Randy was phenomenal.”

John Axford pitched a perfect ninth to record his 41th save in 43 chances.

Cardinals starter Jake Westbrook (11-8) gave up three runs and nine hits in six innings. He tied a career high with nine strikeouts.

“My off-speed stuff was good,” Westbrook said. “I had a really good changeup.”

St. Louis lost for the third time in the last four games.

The Cardinals were looking to get back into the race. Instead, they find themselves in a deep hole with 21 games remaining.

“This is baseball, you can’t figure it out,” St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols said. “You think we’re not trying? It is what it is. They’re playing well. Give the credit to those guys.”

Westbrook kept his team in the game but the Cardinals couldn’t solve Wolf.

Braun, who went 2 for 5 and leads the league with a .335 average, hit his 27th homer in the third inning to give the Brewers a 2-0 lead.

St. Louis cut the deficit in half in the fifth on a double by David Freese and a double-play groundout from Allen Craig.

Yuniesky Betancourt, who went 3 for 4, drove in a run with a single to left in the sixth.

Morgan added his fourth homer of the season in the seventh off reliever Kyle McClellan.

St. Louis swept the Brewers in Milwaukee last week to climb to within 7 1/2 games. Less than a week later, the lead is back to where it was at the start of that series.

“Those guys beat us pretty bad at our place,” Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke said. “We needed to come back and play a good game. We really played well. We pitched great and made some nice defensive plays.”

Braun said the Brewers needed to bounce back from the three losses to St. Louis. Milwaukee outscored Houston 20-4 in a three-game sweep over the weekend.

“This is definitely a good start to the series,” Braun said. “We feel good about ourselves again.”

Milwaukee’s Corey Hart extended his hitting streak to 17 games with a run-scoring single to deep short in the second.

— Associated Press —

Now, the St. Louis Cardinals have to sweep the Milwaukee Brewers again just to keep a sliver of hope alive.

Rookie Juan Francisco capped a career-best four-hit day with the go-ahead single in the 10th inning and the Cincinnati Reds won 3-2 on Sunday to take two of three from a team desperately trying to stay in contention.

The Cardinals swept a three-game series at Milwaukee right before the Reds came to town, but went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position Sunday to fall 9 1/2 games behind the NL Central leaders with 22 games to go. The Cardinals and Brewers have one last three-game set beginning Monday night in St. Louis.

“If we had been able to win at least two out of three here it would have been a lot more compelling, I guess,” Lance Berkman said. “If we can sweep them again, we can put ourselves at least within the realm of possibility, I guess you could say.”

Jon Jay homered and Daniel Descalso had an RBI triple for the Cardinals, who were only 2 for 20 with men on base and dropped their first series at home against Cincinnati since June 1-3, 2009. They’re 13-3 in series against the Reds at 6-year-old Busch Stadium.

Berkman just missed a two-run homer in the first on a ball caught at the right-field wall and Bronson Arroyo robbed Rafael Furcal of a likely two-run single in the second, taking a liner off his leg but recovering to throw to first.

“To go scoreless like we did, it’s an aggravating, upsetting day,” manager Tony La Russa said. “We got zeros is what I’m looking at. The guys were not happy to get zeros.”

Francisco Cordero went through the heart of St. Louis’ order for his 30th save in 35 chances and 13th in a row, also giving him seven 30-save seasons. Edgar Renteria hit a two-run homer in the first for the Reds, who won for only the second time in their last eight games.

Cordero passed Doug Jones with his 320th save for 14th on the career list and is one behind countryman Jose Mesa, the saves leader for pitchers from the Dominican Republic. He has five straight 30-save seasons.

“It means a lot, it shows me I’m doing my job,” Cordero said. “I’ve been doing my job a long time.”

Three straight Reds reached with two outs in the 10th against Fernando Salas (5-6) and pinch-runner Chris Valaika scored easily from second on Francisco’s single to center. The Cardinals fell to 6-12 in extra innings, and lead the majors in extra-inning losses.

“I think it’s meaningful,” La Russa said. “As good as our bullpen has been, at times it’s made mistakes. We’ve gotten beat on a lot of pitches that were good to hit.”

Cincinnati reliever Bill Bray (5-2) got pinch-hitter David Freese to fly out with a runner on second to end the ninth.

Arroyo pitched eight innings, matching his season best. He allowed only two runs despite giving up 10 hits, but is winless in his last seven starts against St. Louis.

“Yeah, he was great,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “He has a big ‘ol welt on his leg from that line drive from Furcal. He got some tough hitters out in some tough situations and we wanted to get him the win, but we got the win.”

Jay’s drive was the 37th allowed by Arroyo, extending his franchise record for a right-hander, but he didn’t allow a runner to reach scoring position his last four innings. He’s 1-5 in his last 12 starts since June 24.

Edwin Jackson struck out eight in seven innings in his best outing since joining the Cardinals at the trade deadline. He trailed 2-0 after the first two hitters but worked six straight scoreless innings after that and is 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA his last three starts.

Brandon Phillips opened the game with a single and Renteria followed with his fifth homer before Jackson retired the next three in order.

Renteria struck out with the bases loaded to end the second. Cincinnati also left two on in the sixth and eighth and another scoring opportunity was squandered in the fourth when catcher Gerald Laird reacted quickly on a pitch in the dirt, recovering it several feet away and throwing to Jackson to catch Francisco trying to score.

Jay hit his ninth homer with one out in the first and Descalso’s triple tied it in the fourth.

The first hit with runners in scoring position by either team was Francisco’s squibber off the end of the bat just out of the reach of Descalso at third and reliever Mark Rzepczynski to put runners on the corners with two outs in the eighth. Octavio Dotel got Ryan Hanigan to ground out to end the threat.

— Associated Press —

Juan Francisco hit a three-run homer and drove in five runs, and the Cincinnati Reds beat St. Louis 11-8 on Friday night to end the Cardinals’ four-game winning streak.

Yonder Alonso had a two-run homer and scored three runs for the Reds, who blew a 5-0 lead. Todd Frazier added a pinch-hit, solo home run for Cincinnati.

Jose Arredondo (4-4) allowed a solo homer in his one inning of work but got the win. Brandon Phillips, Edgar Renteria and Jay Bruce drove in the other runs for the Reds.

Reliever Marc Rzepczynski (0-1) started the seventh for the Cardinals in a 6-6 game and got Joey Votto to ground out to lead off the inning. But Bruce singled to left and Alonso followed with his fourth homer to make it 8-6.

After the Cardinals cut it to 8-7 on an RBI single by Rafael Furcal in the eighth, Francisco gave the Reds plenty of insurance with a two-out, three-run shot off reliever Kyle McClellan in the ninth.

Furcal and David Freese each had a solo home run and an RBI single for St. Louis, and Jon Jay was 2 for 3 with two runs scored. Matt Holliday added a solo homer in the ninth off Cincinnati reliever Francisco Cordero.

St. Louis starter Chris Carpenter had one bad inning, the second, when Cincinnati sent 10 men to the plate and scored five times. After Alonso reached on a double and Drew Stubbs on a fielder’s choice to start the inning, Francisco drove them both home with a double. Phillips, Renteria and Bruce all drove in runs with two-out hits to make it 5-0.

The Cardinals began pecking away at Cincinnati starter Johnny Cueto, getting two runs back in the bottom of the second on an RBI single by Freese and Yadier Molina’s fielder’s choice. St. Louis plated a single run in the third on Lance Berkman’s RBI single, and tied it in the fifth on Furcal’s homer and a double play by Holliday that scored Jon Jay to tie it 5-5.

Frazier hit a solo shot off Carpenter with two out in the sixth to give the Reds the lead again, but Freese tied it with a solo homer off Arredondo leading off the bottom half.

— Associated Press —