ST. LOUIS _ On a strange night at Busch Stadium, struggling starter Jaime Garcia got an early hook, his replacement Alex Reyes couldn't find the plate but pitched four scoreless innings and the Cardinals got two two-run homers, both from players who hadn't done much lately, in a 4-2 win over the Cubs on Tuesday night.
The win allowed the Cardinals to keep pace with the Mets, who blew a two-run lead in the ninth but then scored in the 10th to win, who are a half-game ahead of them in the race for the second NL wild-card spot. It also means that the Cubs won't be able to clinch the Central Division title on Wednesday at Busch. The Cardinals pulled back to with 16 games of the Cubs.
Garcia had lost his last four starts and has not looked particularly good lately, but the Cardinals chose to stay with him. But that commitment apparently is not written in ink. When the Cubs loaded the bases with two outs in the second and were already up 2-0, manager Mike Matheny brought the earliest hook of Garcia's career.
In came Reyes, the likely heir if Garcia's spot in the rotation is gone, who got out of that jam and then pitched four more scoreless innings. Uneventful, though, they were not. Reyes walked two and with a wild pitch had runners on second and third with one out in the third but got out of the jam. He walked the bases loaded in the fourth but got out of that one too. He allowed just one hit, a single to Kris Bryant in the sixth. His line: one hit, six walks, four strikeouts.
The home runs came from shortstop Aledmys Diaz, making his first start since fracturing his thumb on July 31, who went deep in the second, and Brandon Moss, who hasn't been injured but might as well have been. Moss came into the game having one hit in his past 41 at-bats. He singled before Diaz's home run in the second, walked in the fourth and then homered in the sixth. It was his 26th home run of the season, but his first since Aug. 25.
After Reyes was done, the Cardinals got two scoreless innings from reliever Matt Bowman and then Kevin Siegrist came on to get the save, his second of the season. That means that Seung Hwan Oh, the team's closer, is apparently still not available.
