Cards soar on Edmonds' early homer

[StlCards4ever515]

HOUSTON -- Jim Edmonds' three-run homer put the Cardinals ahead early, and two more long balls put the game out of reach as St. Louis beat the Astros, 7-3, in the season opener for both teams on Tuesday evening.
Chris Carpenter pitched seven sharp innings for the defending National League champions against the team they defeated in last year's National League Championship Series. Carpenter, who missed the 2004 postseason due to a rare nerve injury in his right arm, allowed one run on four hits. He struck out two and did not allow a walk, inducing 14 groundouts against five flyball outs.

With two on and two out in the top of the first, Edmonds worked a 3-2 count against Roy Oswalt, a 20-game winner for the Astros last year. On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Edmonds looped a liner to the opposite field and into the Crawford Boxes above the left-field fence at Minute Maid Park.

It continued a pattern for Edmonds, who has been an Astros-killer since coming to the National League in 2000. It was Edmonds' walk-off homer that forced Game 7 of last year's NLCS, and his catch in the seventh game was a key moment in the Redbirds' series-clinching win. The seven-time Gold Glover also walked and hit a sac fly on Tuesday.

Reggie Sanders added a two-run homer off Oswalt, and Larry Walker hit a solo shot against Russ Springer in the seventh. The Cardinals have won three of their past four openers, but had lost the last three times they started the season on the road.

Jason Isringhausen entered with two outs in the ninth and picked up the save by inducing Adam Everett to ground out with the bases loaded.

[Tedc]

Good game. We will get ya tommorrow.

[CrazyEights]

The young Astros outfield is intriguing.