The St. Louis Cardinals found themselves just a little short of road-trip magic in the last game of their series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, falling 2-1 after Matt Kemp hit a ninth-inning walk-off home run against beleaguered Cardinals closer Ryan Franklin. It was a rare save situation for Franklin and a rare pitchers' duel for the Cardinals; Chris Carpenter threw seven scoreless innings, striking out six and walking zero, while Chad Billingsley went eight scoreless with 11 strikeouts to pace the Dodgers. Jonathan Broxton picked up the win afrter allowing a home run on an RBI single from David Freese, who drove in Matt Holliday with two outs after Holliday's second double of the afternoon.
Matt Kemp, who's off to a while-hot start to his season, took Franklin deep to center field in Franklin's first at-bat of the day. Andre Ethier had doubled off of lefty-specialist Trever Miller to start the inning.
The Cardinals will have a day off before they return home to take on the Washington Nationals on Tuesday.