Cardinals Beat Reds 3-2, Four Game Series in Chicago Starts Thursday

Matt Carpenter and Jhonny Peralta homered to back up a second straight dominant start by Jaime Garcia as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-2 on Wednesday night.

Carpenter's homer in the first inning was his second leadoff home run of the season and 11th of his career. It was also Carpenter's second career homer against Reds starter Anthony DeScalfani.

Peralta's solo homer in fourth was the 200th of his career. Peralta is hitting .345 in August.

Garcia (9-8) needed just 85 pitches to get through 8-plus innings and 19 of his 24 outs were ground balls or strikeouts. He has given up two runs in his last 16 innings.

Seung-Hwan Oh earned his 10th save.

CARDINALS-ADAMS SCRATCHED

St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams was a lineup scratch after waking up with left shoulder soreness.

The team said before Wednesday night's game against the Reds that Adams would be evaluated in a day.

Jhonny Peralta replaced Adams in the lineup batting sixth and playing third, and Matt Carpenter moved from third to first. Yadier Molina moved up one spot from sixth to fifth.

Adams was batting .249 with 12 homers and 44 RBIs.