Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
St. Louis 5, Philadelphia 0
When: 8:05 PM ET, Sunday, September 18, 2011
Where: Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Temperature: 61°
Umpires: Home - Gary Darling, 1B - Paul Emmel, 2B - Rob Drake, 3B - Bruce Dreckman
Attendance: 45063

Chris Carpenter tossed eight solid innings and Allen Craig homered twice as the St. Louis Cardinals continued their push toward a postseason berth with a 5-0 road triumph over the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.

Albert Pujols belted his National League-leading 36th homer for St. Louis, which won for the ninth time in 11 contests and moved to within 3 1/2 games of Atlanta in the race for the wild card. The Braves dropped a 7-5 decision to the New York Mets earlier on Sunday.

The Cardinals remained 6 1/2 games behind the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers, who posted an 8-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

Carpenter (10-9) improved to 7-2 in his career against the Phillies after allowing eight hits and striking out five.

Entering the game with just three hits in 20 career at-bats against Cole Hamels (14-9), Pujols deposited the hurler's first pitch just inside the left-field foul pole. The two-run blast in the first inning gave him 95 RBIs for the season.

After failing to execute a bunt on two occasions, Craig doubled the advantage in the sixth and went deep again in the eighth. The homers were his first since Aug. 17, when he belted two against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Hamels suffered his second consecutive loss permitted four runs on seven hits for Philadelphia (98-53), which remained four wins away from setting a single-season franchise record.

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
St. Louis   Philadelphia
Chris Carpenter Player Cole Hamels
Win W/L Loss
8.0 IP 7.0
5 Strikeouts 9
8 Hits 7
0.00 ERA 5.14
Hitting
St. Louis   Philadelphia
Allen Craig Player Chase Utley
3 Hits 3
3 RBI 0
2 HR 0
10 TB 3
.750 Avg .750
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
St. Louis 8 3 19 .235 5 11 5 1 1 1
Philadelphia 8 0 8 .242 14 6 0 2 0 0