Rangers complete sweep of Cardinals
ST. LOUIS -- The Texas Rangers continue to find new ways to win games and the St. Louis Cardinals continue to find ways to lose at Busch Stadium.
Pinch-hitter Jurickson Profar lined a two-run single with two outs in the top of the eighth inning Sunday, lifting Texas to a 5-4 win and a series sweep.
Profar's hit off rookie reliever Matt Bowman (1-2) scored Rougned Odor and Mitch Moreland, making a winner of reliever Tony Barnette (4-2), who pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief. It was the sixth straight win for the Rangers (45-25), who finished their 10-game road trip at 8-2 and improved their record in one-run games to 16-4 for an major-league-best winning percentage of .800.
Meanwhile, St. Louis (35-33) dropped to 15-21 at home, where it didn't lose its 21st game last year until Sept. 4. It lost all five games on its homestand, the first time since Aug. 2-7, 1983, that it lost every game on a homestand of at least five games.
The Cardinals took a 4-3 lead in the sixth with two runs. Matt Holliday lined his 12th homer of the year over the right-field wall, and catcher Eric Fryer, making just his seventh start of the year, drew a bases-loaded walk.
But Bowman couldn't make the one-run edge stick, marking the third time on the homestand that St. Louis coughed up a lead when leading after seven innings.
Nomar Mazara's sacrifice fly in the first started the scoring for Texas. Stephen Piscotty tied it in the second with his eighth homer, a 426-foot shot over the Rangers' bullpen in left field.
Holliday gave the Cardinals a short-lived 2-1 lead with a sacrifice fly in the third, but Moreland clubbed a 456-foot homer to right-center in the fourth, his 11th of the year. It tied Cincinnati's Jay Bruce and Arizona's Paul Goldschmidt for the longest homer by a visiting player in stadium history.
Mazara led off the sixth with his 11th homer, pushing Texas up 3-2.
Neither starter was around for the decision. Rangers lefty Martin Perez departed after 5 1/3 innings, yielding eight hits and four runs with three walks and no strikeouts. St. Louis' Mike Leake pitched six innings, permitting eight hits and three runs, two earned, with no walks and five strikeouts.
The Cardinals pushed the winning runs into scoring position in the ninth, but closer Sam Dyson retired Aledmys Diaz on a grounder for his 13th save.
NOTES: St. Louis activated RHP Seth Maness (right elbow inflammation) from the 15-day DL and optioned LHP Dean Kiekhefer to Triple-A Memphis. Maness pitched five games on a rehab assignment between Memphis and Springfield, allowing one run in five innings. ... Texas C Robinson Chirinos (hand) was back in the lineup Sunday after getting hit by Trevor Rosenthal with a 97-mph fastball in the ninth inning Saturday. ... Cardinals C Yadier Molina got a rare start off Sunday, marking just the seventh time in 68 games he hadn't started.