St. Louis Cardinals hand Ervin Santana first loss of the season

The St. Louis Cardinals beat up on Ervin Santana and the Atlanta Braves to win the first game of a three-game series in Busch Stadium 5-2.

Santana, who previously hadn’t lost a game for the Braves all year, just didn’t have it in this one. Through five innings the righty allowed ten Cardinal hits and five earned runs to put the Braves in a hole too deep to crawl back out of. Five St. Louis hitters had multi-hit nights and Allen Craig led the way with three hits, two runs and an RBI.

Lance Lynn held a struggling Braves lineup to just two runs and seven hits through his seven innings of work while striking out three batters and walking two. Chris Johnson paced Atlanta hitters with a 2-4 night, but Jason Heyward and Justin Upton had some success in the one and two spots, each going 1-3 with a walk. If those guys can keep setting the table for the rest of the hitters in the lineup, the scoring drought is bound to end eventually.

Some good news is that the bullpen was solid in this once again for the Braves. Luis Avilan, David Hale and Ian Thomas combined to throw the final threeshutout  innings and allowed just three hits in the process.

The Braves will look to even the series up tomorrow at 2:15.