Cardinals pull closer in the wild-card race

Kolten Wong and Marcell Ozuna drove in two runs apiece, Jack Flaherty pitched six shutout innings and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-2 on Friday night.

The Cardinals won for the ninth time in 10 games and pulled within a half-game of the Brewers for the National League’s second wild-card spot.

Milwaukee has dropped three of four.

Flaherty (7-6) gave up three hits, walked three and struck out seven. The Brewers had only two runners reach second base against the rookie, who has allowed two earned runs in his past 19 innings pitched.

Bud Norris earned his 24th save in 28 opportunities.

Freddy Peralta (5-4) went six innings, giving up three earned runs. He allowed three hits, walked three, and struck out five. It was his third loss in his last four decisions.

Wong’s two-run double in the eighth padded the Cardinals’ lead to 5-2.

Jedd Gyorko hit his 10th home run of the season to open the fourth. The shot to left field gave the Cardinals a 3-0 lead.

St. Louis took an early lead after Ozuna followed Yadier Molina’s single and a double from Jose Martinez with a hard grounder up the middle.

The Brewers threatened a comeback in the eighth. They loaded the bases against Jordan Hicks, and Jesus Aguilar hit a tworun single to pull the score to 3-2 with one out. But Travis Shaw fouled out to left field and Jonathan Schoop’s flair to shallow centre field was snagged by shortstop Paul DeJong.