ST. LOUIS _ In what turned out to be a battle of solo home runs, Logan Morrison's second of the game, in the 10th inning, gave the Tampa Bay Rays a 3-2 win over the Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Sunday.
All five runs in the game came on solo home runs. The decisive one came in the 10th off reliever Sam Tuivailala. The Cardinals again missed a chance to close ground on the Cubs, who lost to the Phillies.
"It wasn't our day," Cardinals starter Lance Lynn said. "They had one more homer than we did."
"The guys worked hard to get us back into that one, but solo shots hurt us today," manager Mike Matheny said. "Whenever you're home and you get to extra innings and last night (a walk-off win in the ninth) is as fresh in your mind as you had it, you anticipate good things are going to happen. We were one hit away from having another big hit and stacking them on top of each other. Unfortunately we couldn't finish like we needed to."
Kolten Wong, in the seventh, and Matt Carpenter, in the eighth, hit home runs with no one on as the Cardinals came back from being down 2-0 to tie the game. They left the tying run on third in the eighth after singles by Paul DeJong and Yadier Molina, with Wong grounding out to second to end the inning.
Lynn pitched his way out of trouble multiple times in the game, but there was nothing he could do to undo the damage done by the home runs he gave up to Morrison in the fourth and Brad Miller in the seventh.
"I thought Lance was very good," Matheny said. "I thought that was one of the better he's had in a while. You saw more of the ground balls, you saw the heavy sinker, he was efficient. Just a great effort."
Miller's home run, just the sixth this season for the .193 hitting Miller, proved the more costly. The Cardinals' Kolten Wong followed with a home run in the seventh to cut the lead to 2-1.
Wong now has a 10-game hitting streak and has raised his batting average to .316, his high point of the season. He has two home runs in the past three games.
The Cardinals didn't get a hit under Greg Garcia's one-out double in the third and they had singles in the fourth, sixth and seventh and each of those three cases, the runner never got past first.
Lynn came out for a pinch hitter in the seventh after allowing six hits and three walks and striking out eight.
Chris Archer was sharp for the Rays and came out with a 2-1 lead after seven, but reliever Dan Jennings gave up a home run to Carpenter, the only batter he faced.
Reliever John Brebbia struck out Miller with the bases loaded in the eighth to keep the game tied. Brebbia then pitched a scoreless ninth before giving way to Tuivailala for the 10th.
"We tried to go back to a fastball inside but it came back over the plate and he hit it," Tuivailala said. "I made the mistake of being over the plate and that's all it took. I was pitching fine but that one mistake cost us the game."
Matheny said after the game that three of his relievers, Matt Bowman, Trevor Lyons and Ryan Sheriff, were off limits because of work earlier in the series, which left Tuivailala and Brett Cecil as the only options late in the game.
The Cardinals are off Monday before facing Milwaukee, the team immediately ahead of them in the Central Division standings, in Wisconsin on Tuesday.
