Benes Leads Cards By Phillies

May 17, 2000 / 1:05 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Andy Benes not only won, he didn't even walk anyone.

"That's a formula that gives you a great chance to win games," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said Tuesday night after Benes led St. Louis over the Philadelphia Phillies 8-2. "He made some great pitches tonight."

Benes homered and pitched seven strong innings to improve his career record against Philadelphia to 17-6.

Benes (3-2) allowed two runs and 10 hits and struck out eight.

Related Links

Game Summary

Baseball features:

MLB’s Honor Roll

Team Reports

"I'm not naive enough to think things were under control the whole time," Benes said. "When you give up 10 hits, you'd better not walk anyone."

He also extended the Cardinals lead to 3-1 in the fifth with his seventh homer in 641 career at-bats.

"That's the old blind squirrel theory," Benes said. "When something like that happens once in a long while you know there's some luck involved."

Jim Edmonds homered and drove in three runs for the Cardinals, 4-0 against the Phillies this season.

Robert Person (3-2) allowed seven runs and six hits in 6 1-3 innings. He also hit a pair of batters and they both scored.

Philadelphia has lost four straight and five of seven.

Edmonds' 442-foot homer in the first was his 13th of the season and just the 16th home run in the right-field upper deck in the 29-year history of Veterans Stadium.

"That was a bomb," La Russa said.

J.D. Drew, the object of Philadelphia fans' ire when he failed to sign with the Phillies in 1997, was hit by a pitch in the second, advanced on Craig Paquette's double and scored on Eli Marrero's grounder.

Drew added an RBI groundout in the sixth for a 4-1 lead, and the Cardinals added three runs in the seventh on Edmonds' two-run single and Edgar Renteria's RBI double.

Philadelphia, which got all its offense from the top of the order, scored on Mickey Morandini's RBI double in the third and Scott Rolen's run-scoring single in the seventh.

The first four hitters in the Philadelphia lineup were 10-for-16 with two runs and two RBIs. Doug Glanville and Morandini were both 3-for-4.

"We had a couple of chances but we just couldn't get to Benes," Phillies manager Terry Francona said.

Renteria added the eighth run in the ninth on an RBI single by Ray Lankford. Renteria was 3-for-4 with three runs scored.

Notes

The crowd 18,399 was the smallest for a game involving the Cardinals this season.

Morandini is now 25-for-59 against Benes and Glanville is 13-for-28 in his career. "It's pretty impressive when you have 60 at bats and are hitting .420 against a guy," Benes said.

The loudest cheers of the night came from those listening to the Flyers-Devils playoff game on the radio. Every time the Flyers scored, the crowd roared "Let's Go Flyers!"

Two of Benes' home runs have come at Veterans Stadium. The first was off Danny Cox on April 27, 1991.