Cardinals open homestand with 6-1 win over Brewers

ST. LOUIS -- Braden Looper pitched around Prince Fielder, and the rest of a Milwaukee Brewers' lineup minus Ryan Braun failed to make him pay for it.

Looper's scrappy pitching set the tone for the St. Louis Cardinals' 6-1 victory Tuesday night. Looper allowed three hits in five innings.

"When the day started I knew he was the guy I wasn't going to let beat me, but I didn't throw many good pitches early in the count to him, so I never really gave myself a chance," Looper said. "That's not the way I wanted to approach it, but when it's all said and done, we won, and I made some pitches when I had to."

Skip Schumaker had two hits and two RBIs, and Adam Kennedy was 3-for-4 with an RBI for the Cardinals, who lead the NL Central with a 10-4 record. Chris Duncan also had an RBI and Kennedy added a heads-up baserunning play, going from first to third on a groundout and then scoring an insurance run in the seventh.

The Cardinals have won six in a row at home since losing on opening day, their best stretch since a seven-game winning streak from May 11 to 28, 2005.

"Up and down the lineup, everybody is going to need to a little each night," Kennedy said. "We can't leave it all up to the big boys."

Braun, the NL rookie of the year mired in a 3-for-25 slump and batting .226, got a day off. The Brewers also were without .423-hitting Gabe Kapler, a late scratch with a bruised right shoulder.

The Cardinals prevailed in a rare game that featured both pitchers batting eighth, for different reasons. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa anchors his lineup with singles hitters, giving him a pair of leadoff types after the first time through the lineup to give Albert Pujols more RBI opportunities. Brewers manager Ned Yost does it with catcher Jason Kendall to cut down on double plays at the bottom of the order.

Yost's strategy didn't work this time, with pitcher Dave Bush grounding out to end the second and striking out to end the fourth, each time with two runners on, while Kendall was 0-for-3. Milwaukee also left two on in the sixth, the big outs coming on Bill Hall's second double-play ball of the game.

"We're going to keep going with it all year," Yost said. "We don't switch it out after just one bad night."

Cardinals ninth-place hitter Cesar Izturis had a two-run single in a three-run eighth, giving him three RBIs on the year.

"The game wasn't won because the pitcher hit eighth," La Russa said. "We got some big two-out hits and some clutch pitching."

Looper (3-0) tied his high with five walks since moving into the rotation last season, including Fielder all three times.