PITTSBURGH (Ticker) -- Nate McLouth and the Pittsburgh Pirates'
offense played quite the spoiler this weekend against the St.
Louis Cardinals.

McLouth hit a home run and scored three times, Adam LaRoche had
three RBI and Andy LaRoche collected three hits as the Pirates
completed a three-game sweep of the Cardinals with a 7-2 victory
Sunday

The Cardinals (78-71), who are five games behind the Milwaukee
Brewers (83-66) in the wild card standings, have lost five in a
row and 11 of 15. The Brewers, who lost earlier in the day,
play the second game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia
Phillies later Sunday.

"You can sense when you're playing a contender," McLouth said.
"You want to win every game just as bad no mater who you're
playing, but when you can kind of match their intensity they're
trying to bring being still in the race, it's kind of nice to do
that."

Luis Cruz, Brandon Moss and Freddy Sanchez added two hits apiece
for Pittsburgh, which had lost six in a row and 17 of 20
entering the series but engineered its fourth sweep of the
season.

The Pirates scored 24 runs in the series after posting only 21
in their previous six contests.

"We came from facing a team in Houston that's one of the hottest
in baseball right now, and everything they did was right and we
had trouble scoring," Pirates manager John Russell said. "So to
come here, especially at home and with it being our last
homestand, it's nice to be able to score some runs and pitch
well."

Pittsburgh jumped quickly on Cardinals starter Brad Thompson,
with the first five batters of the game reaching base, leading
to three runs. The Pirates also had a streak of four
consecutive hits in the second to add on three more runs.

The first inning featured RBI singles by McLouth, Adam LaRoche
and Moss. The second included a two-run double by Adam LaRoche
and Moss driving him in with a single.

"I don't know what it was. I just felt like a fish out of water
the fist couple innings," Thompson said. "And by the time I was
starting to get back into my groove, I was out of the game."

Thompson (5-3), making his fifth start of the season and first
since August 15, had just allowed a total of seven runs in his
previous four starts. But he was charged with six runs Sunday
to lose for the first time since June 19.

"That's just terrible pitcher's luck," St. Louis manager Tony La
Russa said. "But a lot of times I see us have an inning like
that and if you don't keep on adding, they don't beat you. But
they beat us.

"It was a bad weekend."

Thompson, who scored the Cardinals' first run on Skip
Schumaker's single in the third, allowed nine hits and one walk
while hitting one batter. Randy Flores relieved him with two
outs in the fourth, but McLouth greeted Flores with his 26th
homer, deep to right.

"It was big to jump out with six runs," Russell said. "And then
with Nate's home run pretty much you could feel the momentum
stay in our favor at that point."

Jason Davis made a spot start for the Pirates due to a domino
effect that began when Jeff Karstens was scratched from his
scheduled start Saturday due to a tooth issue. Davis pitched
well but was on a pitch limit and was charged with one run and
three hits while walking one without a strikeout in 45 pitches
over three innings.

T.J. Beam (2-1) relieved and allowed one run in the fourth when
Ryan Ludwick came home on Aaron Miles' groundout.

Both benches and bullpens emptied in the bottom of the ninth,
with St. Louis reliever Ron Villone needing to be restrained
from going after jawing Pirates utilityman Doug Mientkiewicz.

"We have a couple weeks left to show what kid of team we really
are not the one that's been around the last week or two," said
Villone, who was ejected after the incident. "We're sick of
losing, pretty much. It's almost at a boiling point."