Albert Pujols homers, leads Cardinals past Rockies

Albert Pujols homered and finished with four hits, Nolan Arenado also went deep among his three hits, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Colorado Rockies 9-5 in Denver on Wednesday night.

Paul DeJong had four hits, Lars Nootbaar had two triples and Yadier Molina finished with two hits for St. Louis.

Brendan Rodgers had three hits and Jose Iglesias, Yonathan Daza and Elehuris Montero had two hits each for the Rockies.

The Cardinals took an early lead on Colorado starter Kyle Freeland (7-8). With one out in the first, Goldschmidt singled to put runners on first and second and Arenado doubled to drive in Tommy Edman.

Pujols singled to bring home another run and Tyler O'Neill's double made it 3-0. DeJong had an RBI single and, after Molina was hit by a pitch, Nootbaar hit a sacrifice fly to cap the five-run inning.

The Rockies broke through against St. Louis starter Jose Quintana in the third inning. Daza and Charlie Blackmon led off with singles to put runners at first and third, and Daza came home on a sacrifice fly by Iglesias.

It stayed that way until the fifth inning when DeJong doubled with one out and scored on a single by Molina.

That ended Freeland's night. He allowed six runs on 10 hits and struck out just one in 4 1/3 innings.

Austin Gomber came on and got the final two outs of the inning.

The Rockies got one back in the bottom of the fifth. Iglesias doubled to left and, after Rodgers struck out, C.J. Cron tripled to make it 6-2.

Quintana (4-5) went six innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and fanned six.

The Cardinals tacked on a couple more runs in the sixth when Arenado hit his 23rd home run of the season and Pujols followed with his eighth.

St. Louis struck again in the ninth when DeJong singled and came home on Nootbaar's second triple of the night. Colorado rallied in the bottom of the inning on RBI singles by Daza, Iglesias and Rodgers.