Chris Capuano won for the first time since August, helping himself with a double at the plate as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 and avoided a three-game sweep on Thursday.
Russell Branyan homered and Brady Clark had a two-run double for the Brewers, who won for only the third time in 13 games and defeated the Cardinals for the first time in six meetings this season.
Reggie Sanders hit his fifth homer for the Cardinals, who lost for only the second time in 13 games. St. Louis has 14 victories this month, tying the 1963 Cardinals for most April wins in franchise history, and completed a 6-2 homestand.
The game, a makeup from a rainout on Monday, was delayed 1 hour, 16 minutes at the start by rain. It drew a paid crowd of 26,026, although the turnstile count was 9,551, a season low in St. Louis.
Capuano (1-2) gave up two runs and five hits in 6 1-3 innings to get his first victory since Aug. 8 at Florida. His double leading off the third was only the second hit in 39 at-bats by Brewers pitchers this season.
Jason Marquis (3-1), facing the Brewers for the second time in three outings, gave up four runs and five hits in seven innings. with a season-low two strikeouts.
In Denver, the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies saw their doubleheader postponed by rain on Thursday, a day after getting snowed out.
Tyrone Woods connected for a three-run homer in the eighth inning Thursday to lead the Chunichi Dragons to a 9-8 win over the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium.
With the victory, Chunichi opened up a two-game lead over the Tigers in the Central League standings. There were no other games played Thursday in Japanese professional baseball.
Kazuyoshi Tatsunami went 4-for-5 for the Dragons while driving in two runs. Woods also singled in the seventh to drive in his first of four runs.
Hanshin jumped out to an early 7-1 lead, but the Dragons rallied with eight runs over the final three innings.
Chunichi reliever Masafumi Hirai picked up the win after coming on in the seventh, and Hitoki Iwase retired the side in the ninth for the save.
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