Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Tampa Bay 5, St. Louis 1
When: 7:10 PM ET, Saturday, July 2, 2011
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Temperature: Indoors
Umpires: Home - Doug Eddings, 1B - Dana DeMuth, 2B - Kerwin Danley, 3B - Victor Carapazza
Attendance: 23897

Casey Kotchman belted a three-run double with two outs in the sixth inning, and Justin Ruggiano followed with a two-run homer as the Tampa Bay Rays earned a 5-1 victory over the visiting St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday night.

Trailing 1-0, the Rays loaded the bases with a pair of walks and a Johnny Damon single before Kotchman cleared them with a line drive down the right-field line. Ruggiano then hit his fourth homer of the season off losing pitcher Kyle McClellan (6-5), who has not won since May 19.

Damon had four hits for the Rays, moving him past Ted Williams into 70th on the all-time hits list with 2,658. It was Damon’s 39th career four-hit game. Kotchman and Ruggiano each had two hits.

Lance Berkman homered for the third time in three games for the Cardinals, who had their four-game win streak snapped.

Rays starter Jeff Niemann (3-4) allowed nine hits and one run in six innings, earning his second win in three starts (one no-decision) since coming off the disabled list. The Cardinals had five infield hits off Niemann, who struck out five.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
St. Louis   Tampa Bay
Kyle McClellan Player Jeff Niemann
Loss W/L Win
5.2 IP 6.0
4 Strikeouts 5
8 Hits 9
7.94 ERA 1.50
Hitting
St. Louis   Tampa Bay
David Freese Player Johnny Damon
2 Hits 4
0 RBI 0
0 HR 0
2 TB 4
1.000 Avg 1.000
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
St. Louis 10 1 13 .286 24 7 1 3 0 0
Tampa Bay 10 1 14 .323 16 5 5 2 0 0