Cardinals roll to 8th win in a row

Jim Edmonds hit his 300th career home run, Jason Marquis won his 11th straight decision and the Cardinals won their eighth in a row overall, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 Saturday night in St. Louis.

The NL Central leaders needed only two hits, tying their season low, to beat the NL West-leading Dodgers for the second straight night. Playing in front of a sellout crowd of 45,692, they tied their longest winning streak of the season and won for the 13th time in 15 games.

Adrian Beltre had three hits and drove in his 100th run with an eighth-inning double for the Dodgers to cut the gap to 5-1. He's only the third third baseman in franchise history to reach the milestone, joining Ron Cey and Pedro Guerrero.

But the Dodgers' first error in seven games was a much bigger statistic.

Center fielder Steve Finley dropped a routine two-out fly ball by Reggie Sanders with runners on first and third in the sixth, allowing both to score and make it 5-0. It was only the third error of the season for Finley, a four-time Gold Glove winner.

Edmonds became the 103rd member of the 300-homer club with a two-run shot in the second off Kazuhisa Ishii (13-7).

Albert Pujols, was 0-for-2 with two walks, and Beltre are tied for the NL lead with 43 homers.

Marquis (14-4) became the fourth Cardinal starter to reach 14 wins and first to win 11 straight since John Tudor accomplished the feat in 1985. Marquis pitched seven scoreless innings, had a season-best nine strikeouts and worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in his final inning by fanning pinch-hitters Robin Ventura and Milton Bradley.

Marquis followed the lead of Matt Morris, who struck out a season-best 11 in a two-hit, 3-0 victory on Friday.

Marquis, who hasn't lost in 17 starts since May 26, allowed eight hits and walked none. In his last two starts, he's thrown 14 1-3 scoreless innings, and he also matched his career victory total prior to 2004, accomplished over parts of three seasons.

Rolen added a run-scoring single, giving him an NL-leading 117 RBIs, in the three-run sixth.

Ishii lasted 5 2-3 innings and surrendered five runs — three earned — on two hits.