The St. Louis Cardinals have not played well on the road of late. That is going to need to change if they want to keep their spot as one of the two wild cards in the National League.
The Cardinals begin a crucial seven-game road trip on Monday with the first of three games against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.
St. Louis avoided a sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday, as Allen Craig's game-winning single in the bottom of the 10th inning lifted the Cardinals to a 5-4 win.
Matt Carpenter hit a leadoff single to right field off Kameron Loe (6-5), advanced to second following a wild pitch and scored on Craig's base hit to right field.
Lance Lynn (14-7) tossed a scoreless 10th to pick up the win for St. Louis, which snapped its three-game losing streak.
"It was a great feeling to come out on top. The last few days haven't been so great," Craig said.
The Cardinals, who have lost five of their last six on the road, will also visit the Los Angeles Dodgers on this trip.
Jaime Garcia will try to get the trek off on the right foot on Monday, as he takes the hill trying for his second straight win. Garcia beat the New York Mets on Tuesday, as he allowed just an unearned run in 7 1/3 innings to improve to 4-6, while lowering his ERA to 4.16.
However, the left-hander is 1-4 with a 7.76 ERA in his last five road starts
Garcia is 1-0 in four starts versus the Padres with a 1.67 ERA.
San Diego, meanwhile, will counter with lefty Eric Stults, who is 5-2 with a 2.38 ERA. Stults has won his last four starts, but did not get a decision on Tuesday against the Dodgers, who reached him for a run and seven hits in six innings of his team's 6-3 win.
Stults has never faced the Cardinals.
San Diego enters this series red-hot with wins in four of its last five games. On Sunday, Chase Headley's grand slam in the seventh inning helped the Padres get past the Arizona Diamondbacks, 8-2.
"It's something that not a whole lot of people get to say they do that in their career, so it's a great feeling," Headley said about his grand slam, which gave him an NL-best 102 RBI this season.
Headley is batting .326 with 15 homers, 27 runs and 50 RBI since Aug. 1.
Andrew Werner (2-1) got the win and posted his fourth straight quality outing. He pitched 6 1/3 solid innings, allowing just one run on four hits while striking out six.
St. Louis swept the Padres earlier in the season and has won six of the last seven meetings in the series.
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