For once, the Cubs gave Matt Garza a little support at Wrigley Field. Turned out he didn’t need much.

Garza pitched seven sharp innings, Aramis Ramirez homered and Chicago beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 Saturday.

Garza (6-9) scattered five hits, struck out eight and won at home for the first time since June 27.

“Usually we don’t hit or the bullpen blows it up when he pitches, for some reason,” Ramirez said. “He’s pitching better than his record indicates.”

Sean Marshall, Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol finished off the shutout. Marmol earned his 29th save in 37 chances.

“With what Matt has been through this year with a lot of his starts, to see him pitch that well and get some run support made it even better for me,” Cubs manager Mike Quade said.

Garza had been solid at home lately with a 1.75 ERA in his previous five starts. But the Cubs had scored a total of just seven runs in those games, leaving him with an 0-2 record.

“I thought Garza was very good,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “I thought Edwin was too, he just had that one tough inning where he left a couple balls in the middle of the plate.”

“It wasn’t a fun day to be a hitter,” he said.

Ramirez’s two-run homer highlighted a three-run burst in the fourth off Edwin Jackson (2-2). Jackson allowed five hits in seven innings after leaving his last start with a right hamstring cramp.

“I came out aggressive from the beginning,” Jackson said. “It was just that one inning that I paid for a couple of balls left in the middle of the plate. That pretty much summed up the day.”

Early on, it looked as if it might be more of the same for Garza after Jackson held the Cubs hitless and faced the minimum through three innings. Things changed in the fourth as the Cubs hit for the cycle.

Starlin Castro led off with a single and Ramirez connected one out later for his 24th home run. Carlos Pena then tripled and Marlon Byrd doubled.

Ramirez’s homer was Chicago’s 29th in August, most in the majors and was his big league-leading 12th first-pitch shot this season.

“I’m Dominican,” Ramirez said. “We go out there and swing. We don’t walk much.”

The Cubs helped themselves by turning two double plays. Before the game, La Russa said his team’s propensity for hitting into DPs as “brutal.” St. Louis has hit into 136 double plays this season, by far the most in the majors.

“We’ve been talking about double plays all year,” St. Louis’ David Freese said. “We’ve hit into a lot of double plays and it kills rallies. Pretty simple.”

It was Jackson’s turn to be a hard-luck loser despite pitching effectively for the fourth time in five starts since he was traded to St. Louis. Jackson was making his first appearance in Chicago since being dealt by the crosstown White Sox on July 27.

Garza started slowly, allowing a leadoff double to Jon Jay in the first and later walking two batters to load the bases. That spurred Quade to come out for a quick chat.

“He just came out and said, ‘Hey,’ ” Garza said.

Garza recovered to get Freese on an inning-ending double play, the first of 10 straight batters he retired.

The attendance was announced at 42,374, up 31 from Friday’s gathering, which was the Cubs’ largest crowd since Opening Day in 1978.

It’s been a hectic stretch for the Cubs that has seen Friday’s firing of general manager Jim Hendry a few days after tempestuous pitcher Carlos Zambrano left the team during a game and ended up on the disqualified list.

Through it all, Garza has pitched well and the Cubs have played their best baseball of the season, winning 14 of 19.

“I got to come in and do my job,” Garza said. “I don’t want to be the next one out.”

— Associated Press —

A general manager switch, a record crowd, aerial fighter pilots, an extra-innings Cubs win, and an appearance by Larry King. All in all, it was quite a day at Wrigley Field.

Tyler Colvin’s RBI single in the 10th inning off Octavio Dotel lifted Chicago to a 5-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.

“What a day,” Cubs manager Mike Quade said. “Man, oh man. A great comeback win and contributions all over the place.”

The Cubs responded in their first game following the firing of general manager Jim Hendry, who was let go about three hours before the game. He was replaced on an interim basis by assistant general manager Randy Bush.

“It’s a weird way to start the day,” Cubs starter Randy Wells said. “I really didn’t know what to think.”

Geovany Soto led off the 10th with a single off Dotel (0-2), advanced to second on Marlon Byrd’s sacrifice bunt, and scored on Colvin’s hit to center field.

“I was looking for a pitch to hit,” Colvin said. “I was a little antsy on the first two (pitches) and was lucky enough to get a better pitch to hit on the last one.”

Like most of the Cubs, Colvin spoke fondly of Hendry, who was very popular in the clubhouse.

“A little bit (more emotional),” Colvin said. “I got to meet him in 2006 when he drafted me. He’s always been good to me. It’s part of the business, I guess. It was great to get the win. We kept battling back and scratching back.”

Soto also had a game-tying RBI double in the eighth inning. Darwin Barney homered and tripled, and Starlin Castro added two hits for the Cubs. Sean Marshall (6-5) pitched a perfect 10th to earn the win.

Castro, who leads the NL with 162 hits, has 301 in his career. He is the fifth Cubs player to pass 300 in his first two seasons.

Chicago beat the rival Cardinals for just the third time in 10 games this season, delighting a home crowd of 42,343 — the largest at Wrigley Field since the home opener in 1978.

“It’s fun when they sell this place out,” Barney said. “It’s electric either way. When you’ve got that many people behind you — there’s a number of Cardinals fans out there and we hear them — but it’s fun.

“It’s fun to see a guy like Colvin come through like that. It just makes coming to the park fun when those kinds of things happen.”

Yadier Molina hit a two-run homer for the Cardinals, and David Freese added a solo shot.

King sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch. The fans enjoyed extra entertainment courtesy of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds practicing over Lake Michigan a few blocks east of the ballpark during the middle part of the game.

Cardinals starter Jaime Garcia left with a 4-3 lead after he scattered nine hits in 6 1/3 innings. Garcia, who entered the game hitting .085, added an RBI single.

“He had a little trouble the last inning he pitched,” St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said. “He made some mistakes but overall he gave us a legitimate shot to win.”

Wells gave up four hits in seven innings and struck out five. He set down the Cardinals in order in four of his seven innings.

The Cubs nearly won the game in the ninth, but ran themselves out of the inning.

Tony Campana reached first leading off the ninth when second baseman Ryan Theriot bobbled a routine grounder for an error. Campana darted for second on a steal attempt as Castro flied to center, lost track of the ball, and was easily doubled off first base.

“I think that’s the first mistake I’ve seen him make up here,” Quade said. “I don’t think he’ll make that again.”

After trailing for 7 1/2 innings, the Cubs tied it 4-4 in the eighth. Soto’s double into the left-field corner scored Carlos Pena from first base.

Molina’s second-inning homer opened the scoring, and Garcia’s single up the middle scored Theriot to make it 3-0. Freese hit a solo shot in the fourth to put the Cardinals ahead 4-1. He has an RBI in seven of his past eight games.

Barney brought the Cubs within 4-2 with his second homer of the season, landing a shot barely into the basket in the left-field corner. His previous homer was April 25 against Colorado.

“I’d seen all fastballs and I got to a 1-1 count,” Barney said. “I was looking maybe curveball, he was throwing a lot of breaking pitches to righties early in that game. I was kind of looking for something off-speed and he threw a changeup. Fortunately, it was just far enough.”

Barney added a triple when Lance Berkman overran a blooper into the right-field corner in the seventh. He scored when pinch hitter Blake DeWitt’s fly to center was misplayed by John Jay, and the ball rolled to the wall for another triple.

“When I went to go catch it, my foot slipped,” Berkman said. “I kicked a divot.

“This is a terrible place. This is probably one of the top five worst places to play defense. It’s a bad surface, you can’t see. It’s tough. It’s unfortunate that happened on back-to-back plays.”

With DeWitt on third and one out, representing the tying run, Jason Motte relieved Garcia and worked out of the jam by striking out Castro and getting Johnson on a grounder.

The back-and-forth game came after an uneasy morning for the Cubs. All in all, it was a strange day.

“That would be the understatement of the day,” Quade said. “Weird, I guess, I can’t come up with another adjective. We dealt with (the Hendry news) before (the game) and I’m thrilled to death by the way the guys played.”

— Associated Press —

Allen Craig was looking for his first hit in two months, hoping to cast aside an 0-for-11 slide that included a lengthy stay on the disabled list after he fractured his right kneecap in early June.

He definitely needed this one.

Craig homered twice and had three RBIs Wednesday night to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a 7-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Craig went 4-for-5 and Yadier Molina added three hits for the Cardinals, who salvaged the final game of a three-game set in hopes of staying within shouting distance of the front-running Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central.

“That was definitely a big win to kind of stop things there,” Craig said. “It would have been tough to lose this game, definitely.”

Craig had struggled since his return from the disabled list last Wednesday, going hitless in nine at-bats. He worked the count full against Paul Maholm in the first abd then — perhaps a little anxious to bust loose — swung at a pitch near his eyes even though Albert Pujols was on deck.

Maholm heard the ball come off the bat and figured it was a routine popup to center. It wasn’t. The ball sailed into the Cardinals bullpen to give St. Louis a quick 2-0 lead.

“I don’t know why he swung, he should have just at taken it for a walk,” Maholm said. “But obviously it looked good to him.”

Craig added a solo shot in the seventh off Brad Lincoln for his first career multihomer game. It was the kind of positive reinforcement he needed after a longer than expected visit to the DL.

He anticipated being out three to six weeks after slamming into the wall in Houston. It was nearly two months before he was back on the field.

“It’s tough to put a timetable on something like that,” Craig said. “It’s a unique injury in a unique spot and eight weeks is what it was. I busted my butt to get my legs strong and rehab.”

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa would like to play Craig more often, but it’s difficult when the team is healthy. But with a left-hander on the mound, La Russa figured Craig needed to start.

“When he’s healthy, I’ve said it several times, I’d like to get him into the lineup,” La Russa said. “This was the perfect time — a left-hander, give Lance (Berkman) two days off, but it’s no hunch. The guy’s already proven he deserves some playing time.”

Kyle Lohse (11-7) picked up his 99th career victory by pitching seven solid innings. The right-hander allowed two runs and five hits, struck out seven and walked one.

Maholm (6-14) dropped his fifth straight decision, giving up three runs — all in the first — and eight hits in five innings.

Though Maholm’s numbers are solid this season, he’s consistently run into trouble in the first inning. He started the game giving up a team-high 15 first-inning runs this season, and St. Louis wasted little time adding to that total.

Craig’s drive kickstarted the offense, and the Cardinals made it 3-0 on a run-scoring single by Molina.

Lohse nearly matched Maholm’s early troubles, loading the bases in the bottom of the first. But he escaped when Ryan Ludwick’s sinking line drive to right field was corralled by Craig.

“It was a little scary there in the first, but after that I felt like I got rolling,” Lohse said.

Lohse settled down after that, retiring nine straight at one point and striking out the side in the fourth.

“That was a product of getting to what I’ve been doing all year when I’m successful: just getting ahead of guys and coming right at them,” Lohse said. “It’s not going to happen every time like that, but when you’re getting ahead of guys and making them swing at your pitches, you’re usually going to have more success than not.”

Lohse’s only mistake came when Jose Tabata hit a two-run homer to right in the fifth.

There was some sentiment to Tabata’s hit. The game marked his first career start in right field and he has spoken openly about emulating legendary Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, who played the same position in Pittsburgh for 18 seasons.

Tabata’s home run sailed just over the “Clemente Wall” — adorned with Clemente’s retired No. 21 — but the joy would be temporary.

St. Louis increased its lead to 4-2 when Ryan Theriot scored on Lohse’s groundout in the sixth.

Some sloppy Pittsburgh defense in the eighth helped the Cardinals put it out of reach. First baseman Garrett Jones bobbled a routine grounder by Jon Jay, who later scored when third baseman Brandon Wood threw wild to first trying to get a hustling Craig.

That was more than enough for the Cardinals, who have seen first place fall almost out of sight this month. They began August 2½ games behind the Brewers but have failed to find any traction.

They were hoping to get better during a six-game swing through Pittsburgh and Chicago, but the trip started with a thud. The Cardinals were dominated on Monday night and let a late lead slip away on Tuesday when they eventually lost on Jones’ 11th-inning homer off Arthur Rhodes that landed in the Allegheny River.

There were no such issues on Wednesday thanks to Craig’s rare power surge.

— Associated Press —