CINCINNATI _ After starting twice at right field and twice at third base on the Cardinals' six-game trip, Tommy Edman turned up at second base Sunday, replacing the Cardinals' hottest hitter lately, Kolten Wong. Nary a beat was skipped.
Edman singled in his first two at-bats and then homered in his third, keying a two-run fifth inning that propelled the Cardinals to a big lead over the Cincinnati Reds.
The bullpen then helped _ and also hurt _ as Jack Flaherty gained his seventh win, 5-4, and his third in succession. Giovanny Gallegos got a double play to end the sixth. When Gallegos and Andrew Miller encountered trouble in the seventh, John Gant escaped the inning on a nifty double play started by shortstop Paul DeJong.
After Gant had a spotless eighth, Carlos Martinez staggered to his 14th save in the ninth, stranding the tying run on first as he fanned Reds slugger Eugenio on a checked swing on which the Cardinals won the appeal to first-base umpire Ramon Ortiz.
And now, the Cardinals return home, still in first place in the National League Central Division, with the ever-challenging Milwaukee Brewers to start a three-game series with the Cardinals on Monday night at Busch Stadium.
