CINCINNATI _ Luis Castillo, the Cincinnati Reds' All-Star right-hander, had throttled the Cardinals twice this season, holding them to two runs in 12 innings. But it was the Cardinals who worked over Castillo early in the game Friday night, requiring him to throw 52 pitches to traverse the first two innings.
The 50th of those pitches was a 3-0 fastball to Dexter Fowler with two on and two out in the second. Instead of having Fowler potentially walk to load the bases, the Cardinals had flashed the hit sign to the veteran outfielder. Hit he did, launching his 14th homer, a three-run shot to right center, that gave the Cardinals a 4-0 lead.
And hit the Cardinals did the rest of the night, rolling up season-high 18 hits and a season-high 13 runs in a 13-3 romp over the Reds.
Besides Fowler, who drove in four runs, Paul DeJong, Paul Goldschmidt and Kolten Wong also homered. Wong had four hits while Fowler, Marcell Ozuna and Tommy Edman had three.
Adam Wainwright, whose biggest nemeses in his career had been the Reds (he was 9-12 with 5.31 earned run average), whipped through five scoreless innings, fanning six, before giving up three runs in the sixth. Two of those came on a homer by Aristides Aquino, who has 10 homers in 16 games since being called up from the minors this season.
Wainwright (9-8), who hadn't won a start here since May, 2014, was pitching with Molina catching for the 257th time. The Cardinals won for the sixth time in their past seven games, taking a full one-game lead over the suddenly disintegrating Chicago Cubs, who led them by four games just more than a week ago.
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