Cards start interleague run with win

ST. LOUIS -- Matt Morris won his third straight decision and Jim Edmonds' two-run homer sparked a four-run seventh inning as the Cardinals beat the Toronto Blue Jays 11-5 Tuesday night.

Edgar Renteria had three hits and three RBIs, Tino Martinez had two hits and three RBIs and Scott Rolen had three hits and scored twice as the Cardinals evened their record at 4-4 on a 13-game homestand, the longest of the season. St. Louis was 8-4 in interleague play last year.

Frank Catalanotto had two hits and two RBIs for the Blue Jays, whose three-game winning streak came to an end. Toronto lost for only the third time in its last 13 road games.

Morris (7-3) scattered nine hits in seven innings, allowing four runs with four strikeouts and no walks. The Blue Jays bunched four of the hits in a two-run third and three more in a two-run sixth.

Morris, who has pitched an NL-leading 98 innings, was 4-1 in May with a 2.23 ERA. He is 4-0 the last two seasons in interleague play and is 7-3 overall against the AL with a 3.09 ERA.

Edmonds had been in an 0-for-15 slump before hitting his 12th homer off Doug Davis with one out in the seventh. The homer compensated for Edmonds' fielding miscue in the sixth, when he came in and then retreated too late on Vernon Wells' RBI double.

Martinez, who struggled the first two months, has driven in at least one run in three of his last four games. Martinez, who had six 100-RBI seasons in a seven-year span in the AL before joining the Cardinals last season, had a run-scoring single of Kelvim Escobar (2-3) in a four-run fifth, a run-scoring groundout in the sixth and an RBI single in the seventh, giving him 20 RBIs this year.

Renteria added an RBI triple in the seventh and had a two-run single in the eighth.

Escobar breezed through the first three innings, retiring the Cardinals in order and throwing only 31 pitches. In six innings, the converted closer gave up five runs -- four earned -- on six hits.

Reed Johnson's run-scoring groundout and Catalanotto's RBI single off Morris' glove gave the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead in the third.

Martinez and Mike Matheny had RBI singles and Miguel Cairo added a sacrifice fly in the fifth. A fourth run scored when third baseman Howie Clark threw wildly to first for an error on Morris' sacrifice bunt.

Toronto tied it in the sixth on Wells' RBI double and a run-scoring single by Orlando Hudson. The Cardinals regained the lead when Rolen reached on an infield hit to open the sixth, boldly went to third on a bloop single by Renteria that barely dropped between two fielders, and scored on a groundout by Martinez.

Notes: The Cardinals' interleague opener drew 28,907, the fifth-smallest crowd of the season. ... SS Renteria robbed Catalanotto of a hit when he fielded his grounder in the hole and 2B Cairo fielded the relay on a short hop for a forceout. ... Of Morris' 109 pitches, 80 were strikes. ... Morris is 40-19 at Busch Stadium. ...Blue Jays reliever Pete Walker stumbled on the mound pitching to Edmonds in the eighth and was taken out of the game favoring his left leg.