Two late rallies kept St. Louis Cardinals fans in their seats until the end at Busch Stadium, but the Florida Marlins answered each time to pull away with an 8-7 win in the third game of the series. Mike Stanton homered again for the Marlins, who improve to 19-10 on the season. The top of the Marlins' order—Chris Coghlan, Emilio Bonifacio, Hanley Ramirez, Gaby Sanchez, and Stanton—went 9-22 with a double, triple, and home run to drive the offense. Albert Pujols reached base three times and Jon Jay hit a pinch-home run in the ninth inning for the Cardinals, who fall to 17-14.
Errors proved disastrous for the Cardinals; Yadier Molina made two errant throws and Chris Carpenter added two of his own, causing two crucial runs to score in the third inning. Carpenter threw six innings and allowed six runs, four earned, but managed to earn yet another no-decision when the Cardinals scored two runs of their own on RBI from Daniel Descalso and Ryan Theriot.
But Pujols grounded out with the bases loaded to end the threat, and Stanton homered off of reliever Eduardo Sanchez in the ninth inning to put the game away for good. Jay's ninth-inning home run put the Cardinals back into rally mode, but after Pujols drew his second walk of the evening Matt Holliday hit into a double play to end the game.
The Cardinals and Marlins end their four-game set Thursday; they'll play at 12:45 CDT.