By MATT PIKE
Dustin May earned his first win since April 21st as Alec Burleson homered and drove in three runs to help power the surging St. Louis Cardinals to a 7-0 victory over the New York Mets at Citi Field.
May tossed six solid innings giving up four hits and striking out six while walking one, improving to 4-6 on the season, to snap a seven-start winless streak for the Cardinals, who have won five straight games, just one shy of their season high.
JJ Wetherholt’s two-run double, driving in Nolan Gorman and Nathan Church, who returned from the 10 day injured list, against Freddy Peralta sparked a four-run third inning. Jordan Walker had an RBI double, bringing home Wetherholt, and Lars Nootbaar added a run-scoring groundout later in the inning, scoring Iván Herrera, pushed the Cardinals to a 4-0 lead at the end of three.
Burleson added to the lead in the fifth inning hitting his two-run shot to left field, driving in Herrera, and then drove in the final run of the game in the seventh inning with an RBI double, bringing home Herrera once again, to give St. Louis the 7-0 lead. The three-RBI game was the fifth this season for Burleson, who entered Tuesday tied for seventh in the NL in RBI's.
Herrera was 3-for-3 with a double on the day and was plunked twice in five plate appearances, scoring three of the seven runs. Nathan Church was 3-for-4 with a double and a run scored, also flashing his defense robbing Marcus Semien of a two-run double with a basket catch in center field to end the fourth inning. Burleson was 2-for-5 with the double and the home run, driving in three runs, and scoring one.
St. Louis and New York continue their series tomorrow. Andre Pallante (6-4, 3.96 ERA, 51K's) starts for the Cardinals against Mets opener Austin Warren (1-2, 2.01 ERA, 23K's) in the middle game of the series. First pitch is at 6:10pm, coverage begins at 6 on KY 102 (102.5 FM).
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