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Bautista, Lawrie power Blue Jays past Cardinals

Coverage of today's Cards and Blue Jays game can be heard on Newstalk 97.3 WTIM beginning at 11:30am.

Toronto, ON (SportsNetwork.com) - Jose Bautista and Brett Lawrie both homered, Marcus Stroman spun six-plus strong innings, and the Toronto Blue Jays secured their  sixth straight win  with a 3-1 decision over the St. Louis Cardinals in the opener of a three-game series Friday at Rogers Centre.

Bautista  belted a solo shot in the third, while Lawrie launched a tiebreaking blast in the fifth to make a winner out of Stroman (3-0), who struck out seven and  allowed just  one run on seven hits  with two walks to pick up the win in his second big league start.

Jose  Reyes finished 3-for-3  with an RBI for Toronto, which has won 15 of its last 17 games.

Lance  Lynn (6-4)  absorbed the loss after  giving up two runs on six hits and four walks with six strikeouts over five frames.

"There's  good and there's  bad," said Lynn. "I thought I made some pitches to have some better results. There is the good and the bad. That's part of it."

Allen  Craig collected two  of St. Louis' seven hits and drove in the lone run for  the Cardinals, who  went 1-for-12  with runners  in scoring position and suffered their fifth loss in six games.

St. Louis struck first in the opening frame as Matt Carpenter worked a leadoff walk before moving to third on Matt Holliday's one-out, ground-rule double.

Craig  then  ripped a single to  right to plate Carpenter, but Bautista gunned down  Holliday at  the  plate for  the  second out  before  Stroman induced  a groundout from Yadier Molina to keep the margin at one.

Bautista  brought  the Blue  Jays even with  his leadoff blast  to left in the third,  while  Lawrie put  Toronto on  top for  good with  his two-out shot to center field in the fifth.

Toronto  seemed  poised to tack  on some runs in  sixth after Anthony Gose and Reyes smacked back-to-back singles before Melky Cabrera reached on Carpenter's fielding error to load the bases with no outs.

However,  Bautista followed  with a sharp liner to second that Daniel Descalso snared  before  flipping to  shortstop Jhonny  Peralta to  double off Reyes at second. Peralta then fired to first baseman Craig to complete the 4-6-3 triple
play.

"I  did  everything I could," said  Bautista of the  play. "I laid off two bad pitches,  swung at the one in the zone and hit it hard just right at somebody. It's out of my control."

The  Blue  Jays added  an insurance  run in  the eighth,  as Lawrie and Dioner Navarro  opened the  inning with consecutive singles before Reyes followed two batters later with a run-scoring base hit to right for a 3-1 lead.

Casey  Janssen  then fired  a 1-2-3  ninth to nail  down his  11th save of the season.

                                   Game Notes

Stroman  made his first  major league start on May 31 and yielded just one run on five hits with six strikeouts in a 12-2 victory over the Royals ... Toronto swept a three-game series in St. Louis in the last meeting between these teams on  June 24-26,  2011 ... Toronto leads  the majors with 89 homers this season ...  St.  Louis stranded nine baserunners  in the setback ... St. Louis turned
its first triple play since May 5, 2005 against the San Diego Padres.

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