The Cardinals waited a long time to snap their 4-game losing streak---5 months and some change---but they did it in convincing fashion, whipping the Astros 7-3 despite some shaky bullpen work by the four relievers charged with getting the final six outs.

The single greatest key to the victory was the work of starter Chris Carpenter, who allowed only four baserunners over seven sharp innings, exiting with a 7-1 lead after an economical 97 pitches. But it was Jim Edmonds who set the tone in the top of the first, wasting no time in continuing his 5-year assault on Houston pitching with yet another of his patented off-balance, awkward, lunging, opposite-field home runs, good for a first-inning 3-run lead.

A critical component of the game was the inscrutable work of home plate ump Ed Montague, whose tiny early strike zone affected both Carpenter and Astro starter Roy Oswalt---especially Oswalt, who huffed and sputtered as Montague glared back during one sequence---and whose expanded late strike zone bailed out Julian Tavarez with the Astros threatening.

The final score could have been very different had a couple of calls broken Houston’s way. Edmonds’ 3-run ding came on a two-out 3-2 pitch, and all three balls---especially ball two---were close enough that Oswalt was visibly chafed that he didn’t get at least one of them. After fouling off the first 3-2 offering, Edmonds tracked a pitch heading for the outer corner and, just before the ball got to Ausmus’s mitt, got the bat head down and out and drove the ball on a line just over the left-field wall.

Just like that, the Birds were up 3-0, and after Grudzielanek grounded to second in his Cardinal debut, Carpenter took the mound and pitched as if he had never suffered the nerve weirdness that derailed his season last September.

Carpenter was masterful, around the plate all night, throwing enough strikes to keep the Astros aggressive yet missing just low or just away often enough to keep them off balance. The Astros gave him trouble in only one inning, the 3rd, when they scored a run on a two-out Craig Biggio single. That was the only inning out of seven in which Carpenter threw more than 15 pitches, and after the Biggio RBI, he retired the last 13 Astros he faced.

Meanwhile, Oswalt settled into a groove after the Edmonds home run, allowing just one other hit afterwards through the 5th. But unfortunately for Oswalt, he has no Scott Rolen manning 3rd base behind him, and that hurt as the first two batters in the 6th reached base---Pujols a single and Rolen a double---on hits off Morgan Ensberg’s glove. The Cardinals took advantage with an Edmonds sac fly and then, to mushroom the lead to 6-1, another opposite field jack---this time by Reggie Sanders, who had himself a nice little night with the homer, a walk, and two other at-bats in which he didn’t offer at anything outside the strike zone.

The Cardinals seemed to be on cruise control as they turrned to the bullpen in the 8th with a 7-1 lead. Al Reyes came in throwing darts, getting two quick outs and then going to a 1-2 count on pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro. O-Pa, as Cards fans remember, can take an outside pitch the other way or, as he did here, turn on a hanger and pull it into the corner for extra bases. A walk on a 3-2 pitch to Adam Everett followed, and Biggio’s two-run double chased Reyes and brought in Wildman Tavarez.

After a first-pitch strike to Jeff Bagwell, Tavarez alternated between rubbing the top of his head and throwing pitches out of the strike zone---four of them, none particularly close. All of a sudden the tying run was on deck, and what had been almost a laffer began to induce a little squirming. Tavarez, now rubbing his head furiously after each delivery, ran the count to 3-1 on Morgan Ensberg---just one ball from the facing the tying run---then threw two questionable strikes that Ensberg watched go by. What had been a breadbox of a strike zone most of the game suddenly became a beanbag chair, amorphous and ever-shifting. But the Cardinals weren't complaining, and the Astros threat was extinguished. At least until the 9th.

More Astro baserunners ensued in the 9th, but Izzy came in with two outs to spell Ray King and showed that all those hits and walks and runs allowed in spring training don’t mean a thing once the real games start. Sure, he walked the first batter he saw (to load the bases), but Izzy is always doing that. It’s the second batter that matters, and Izzy got a first-pitch ground out to seal the deal.

We’ll take it!!!

Won't see it in the box score: Larry Walker's hustle on Rolen's 2-out grounder to deep short in the 1st inning extended the inning when Everett's peg to second failed to nail Walker, who had singled earlier. Edmonds followed with his 3-run poke.

The Meat: Walker/Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds combined to go 8-for-17 with 6 runs and 5 rbi.

The New Guys: David Eckstein outplayed the stumbling Edgar Renteria (couple ugly games for Edgar so far) with a solid single in an at-bat in which he took three straight balls, then two straight strikes, before lining a single to center. Eck also started a 6-4-3 double play and had only one play all night in which he had to throw to first---and the ball made it all the way, on the fly. Mark Grudzielanek was also solid afield and chipped in with a single.

Ground Swell: In one stretch from the 1st to the 6th, Chris Carpenter recorded 15 of 16 outs either by grounder or by strikeout.