Phillies finish the job this time

ST. LOUIS -- After three straight difficult losses, Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel kept things calm. His team responded with an easy victory.

Rookie Gavin Floyd pitched seven dominant innings Saturday, retiring 19 straight St. Louis Cardinals batters and giving the Phillies' beleaguered bullpen a break in a 10-4 victory.

"You don't show panic; you don't get down," Manuel said. "I try to stay that way. If you're consistent and you stay positive, keep it upbeat, I firmly believe the atmosphere around you stays that way."

"Yesterday was yesterday," said Chase Utley, who hit his first home run. "Baseball is a long season, a day-to-day thing."

Pat Burrell was 4-for-5 with a three-run home run and five RBIs, and Bobby Abreu also homered for the Phillies. Cardinals starter Jeff Suppan gave up 10 hits and six runs -- five earned -- in four-plus innings.

The 22-year-old Floyd, the fourth pick of the 2001 draft out of high school, was 2-0 last September after beginning the year at Class AA Reading. He gave up a run in the first when Larry Walker doubled with one out and Albert Pujols followed with an RBI single to tie it 1-1.

Striking out cleanup hitter Scott Rolen, the next batter, settled him down.

"They scored a run but I can't do anything about it," Floyd said. "It definitely turned things around."

Floyd ignored the big names in the Cardinals' lineup, allowing three hits with two strikeouts and no walks. He also got his first career hit in the fourth, a single up the middle.

"I don't really pay attention," Floyd said. "I go out there and I have a job to do and that's to get them out. I don't care who's up there really."

Suppan, coming off a career-best 16-win season, had only one easy inning, a 1-2-3 second. He was lifted after Abreu hit his first homer, Jim Thome walked and Burrell singled off the wall in left-center to start the fifth.

"Definitely, location was a big part of this game," Suppan said. "As the game went on, I got a little frustrated with myself because I was trying to go down and away I'd cut it back over the middle.

Burrell also had an RBI double in the first, an infield hit in the sixth and capped a big day with a three-run homer off Randy Flores in the eighth to make it 10-1. He's batting .555 with two homers and leads the major leagues with 12 RBIs.

"It's going good, I can't complain," Burrell said. "I've got to keep grinding."

Utley's first homer of the season, a two-run shot in the fourth, was the first off St. Louis pitching this season and put the Phillies ahead 4-1.

Burrell had a run-scoring double in the first, although the Cardinals avoided further damage on a strong relay from second baseman Mark Grudzielanek to the plate to nail Thome, and Thome had an RBI single in the third.

The Cardinals' David Eckstein was 1-for-4 after having reached base in eight straight plate appearances, the run ending on a groundout to start the bottom of the first. The franchise record is 12 in a row by Jim Edmonds in 2000 and Chick Hafey in 1929.

The Cardinals scored three runs in the ninth off Pedro Liriano.

Noteworthy

* St. Louis Rams wide receiver Isaac Bruce, who wears No. 80, removed that number from a counter on the right-field wall after five innings, signifying that 79 games remain in the final season at Busch Stadium.

* Edmonds is one hit shy of 1,500 for his career.

* Both benches were warned in the eighth inning after Randy Flores threw a fastball behind Jimmy Rollins, who had stolen second with the Phillies ahead 6-1 in the sixth. La Russa said Flores wasn't throwing at Rollins. "It's just the way it looked, so he had to do something," La Russa said. In any case, Manuel said he'll always run with a five-run lead. "I know baseball standards 25 years ago, you get a five-run lead you shut your running game, down blah, blah, blah. That's not the case no more, you've got to keep going."