Cardinals top Dodgers 3-2 for sixth straight win, extend Los Angeles skid

Jordan Walker’s two-run homer and Michael McGreevy’s six scoreless innings gave St. Louis a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday at Busch Stadium, a result that pushed the Cardinals to their sixth straight victory and left the Dodgers with a season-high four-game skid.

The Cardinals did not just win another close game. They answered a sweep by Seattle to finish their previous homestand, then took two straight from Los Angeles to move to 20-13 overall and 9-8 at home. That makes the run look less like a lucky burst and more like a club settling into a workable formula: a young power bat, a starter who limited damage, and a bullpen that could protect a lead.

Walker supplied the key swing in the third inning against Roki Sasaki, driving a pitch for his 10th home run of the season. The homer extended Walker’s hit streak to seven consecutive plate appearances and came after a minor adjustment with hitting coach Brant Brown. It was the kind of sharp, early impact that can change a tight game before a bullpen even becomes a factor.

McGreevy gave the Cardinals exactly the kind of outing they needed to make that swing stand up. He scattered three hits over six innings, walked three and struck out three, and benefited from double plays in four of the first five innings. JJ Wetherholt helped turn one on a Shohei Ohtani line drive, and another came on a Teoscar Hernández grounder. Ryne Stanek and JoJo Romero each worked a scoreless inning before the Dodgers finally scratched across runs in the ninth.

Los Angeles never found the extra-base hit it needed to put real pressure on St. Louis. That absence mattered as much as the final score. The Dodgers have now gone five straight games without a home run for the first time since May 2015, an unusually long drought for a lineup built around high-end talent. Sasaki threw 104 pitches and allowed three runs on five hits in six innings, but the offense could not overcome the early deficit.

The ninth inning offered a brief opening. With two outs already recorded, Kyle Tucker and Teoscar Hernández reached on back-to-back infield singles, then Max Muncy and Andy Pages drove in runs to make it close. Riley O’Brien still finished it off for his ninth save by striking out pinch-hitter Dalton Rushing.

For St. Louis, the numbers now point beyond one weekend. For Los Angeles, the warning signs are sharper: a four-game slide, no home runs in five games, and too much late pressure to keep leaning on stars alone.