Beltran homers twice as Cards top Nats, tie NLDS

St. Louis, MO, United States (4E Sports) – Slugger Carlos Beltran hammered two homers and Jon Jay drove in three runs as the St. Louis Cardinals evened the National League Division Series at 1-1 with a 12-4 victory over the Washington Nationals Monday at Busch Stadium.

Beltran homered in the sixth and eighth, Allen Craig hit one in the second inning off starter Jordan Zimmermann and David Descalso connected a solo shot off reliever Craig Stammen in the fourth for the Cardinals.

Aside from his offensive contribution, Jay also made a tremendous running catch of Danny Espinosa’s drive in the sixth inning.

“It was a little bit easier to see when the shadows were gone,” Jay said. “The ball went up, and I got a good beat on it. I just said, ‘Make the catch. Make the catch.’ And I came up with it.”

The Cardinals will bring the momentum of their Game 2 win when they travel to Washington where the rest of the best-of-five series will be played starting Wednesday. The Cardinals will start Chris Carpenter in Game 3 against Edwin Jackson.

Zimmerman (0-1) lasted just three frames, allowing five earned runs on seven hits with two strikeouts as Washington fielded six relievers in the game in a futile attempt to stop the Cardinals’ hot hitting.

St. Louis starter Jaime Garcia’s stint was much shorter, lasting just two innings after throwing 51 pitches against 11 batters. He allowed a run on two hits before he was replaced by Lance Lynn (1-0), who threw three innings of two-run ball with five strikeouts.

After Garcia surrendered a run in the first inning, the Cardinals clobbered Zimmermann with four runs in the second. David Freese started the pummeling with an RBI double before Descalso hit a run-scoring single.

Skip Schumaker added an RBI groundout and Jay contributed an RBI single for a 4-0 Cardinals lead.

In the third, Craig hit a solo homer off Zimmerman, who was then pulled out for reliever Craig Stammen. The reliever did no better, giving up a solo homer to Descalso in the fourth and an RBI single to Jay.

The Nationals bounced back in the fifth with solo homers by Ryan Zimmerman and Adam LaRoche against Lynn but Beltran hit the first of his two homers in the sixth to pad the Cardinals lead to 8-3.

The Cardinals did not let up, scoring four more runs in the eighth against Sean Burnett — on a triple by Jay, Beltran’s two-run shot and Craig’s RBI double to left field.

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