AROUND THE HORN

Cardinals:

Iván Herrera hit a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the eighth inning for his first career RBI and the Cardinals beat the Cubs 5-3 Saturday. Juan Yepez lined a one-out double to the left field wall off Cubs reliever Mark Leiter Jr. (1-2) in the eighth, and pinch-runner Edmundo Sosa advanced to third on a wild pitch before scoring the go-ahead run on Herrera’s fly. Harrison Bader advanced to second on Herrera’s out and scored on Tommy Edman’s single to right field to extend the lead to 5-3. Ryan Helsley (3-0) pitched 1 scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 0.31. Miles Mikolas allowed one run on four hits while matching his season high of nine strikeouts. His 2.06 career ERA in 13 games (11 starts) against the Cubs leads all active pitchers with at least 10 starts. Adrian Sampson allowed two runs when St. Louis strung together a trio of two-out hits in the first inning, but he gave up just one additional hit in his five innings of work. Rafael Ortega belted his fourth home run of the season, a two-run shot off Giovanny Gallegos, in the eighth inning to tie it 3-all. Brendan Donovan had a bloop single down the left field line in that first inning that scored Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado to give St. Louis a 2-0 lead. Alfonso Rivas drove in Patrick Wisdom on a sacrifice fly to center field in the fifth inning to cut the Cubs deficit to 2-1. Dylan Carlson stroked an RBI double to right field off Rowan Wick to score Arenado in the sixth inning to expand the Cardinals lead to 3-1.

Rays: Isaac Paredes hit a solo homer in the eighth inning and a two-run single with two outs in the ninth, sending the Rays to a 6-5 victory over the Pirates on Saturday. Ji-Man Choi and Vidal Bruján reached on two-out walks before Jonathan Aranda’s pinchhit single loaded the bases against David Bednar (3-2). Paredes then hit an opposite-field liner to right for his game-ending single. “Very happy,” Paredes said through a translator. “I was very confident going into that at-bat.” Paredes’ teammate celebrated by dumping two containers of sports drink and then a bucket of ice on him in front of the Rays dugout after his hit on an 0-2 pitch. “He’s fun to watch,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Certainly picked us up in a big way.” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said Bednar “just didn’t execute pitches.” “He ended up having two walks and that’s very uncharacteristic of him,” Shelton said. “We were one pitch away multiple times in that inning and were not able to finish it.” Paredes got the Rays within one in the eighth with his team-leading 10th homer — all over his last 25 games. He has gone deep five times in his last three games. Ralph Garza Jr. (1-2) worked two scoreless innings for the win in the Rays’ fourth straight one-run game. It also was a Rays-record 11th consecutive game decided by two or fewer runs. Jack Suwinski hit a three-run homer for the Pirates. JT Brubaker allowed three runs and nine hits in six innings. Jalen Beeks replaced Tampa Bay’s Corey Kluber with one out in the sixth. The lefty walked Daniel Vogelbach and allowed Bligh Madris’ single that struck an overhanging catwalk before Suwinski connected for his 12th homer. Suwinski also made a nifty catch along the short wall in left on Luke Raley’s foul ball in the bottom of the sixth. Kluber allowed two runs and five hits.