Descalso hits first career grandslam, Cardinals beat Padres 10-2 (5/21)

On a beautiful night for baseball on the West Coast, the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the San Diego Padres 10 to 2 on Tuesday night behind strong performances from both Daniel Descalso and starting pitcher Adam Wainwright in a Major League Baseball regular season contest, as the home stadium was a crowd filled with the visiting teams' fans.

Wainwright, who had entered the contest with no career wins at Petco Park, walked off the field behind a nice, loud ovation from the large swarms of Cardinals fans as he seen his night come to an end with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning as St. Louis had an eight run lead. In his first ever win against San Diego away from Busch Stadium, Wainwright pitched 7 1/3 innings as he gave up one run on four hits and gave up no walks and six strikeouts. He improved his record to 6-3 and has now won at every National League ball park.

Descalso had a big night as well, as his came at the plate. He finished the night going 3 for 3 with the bat and ended with five RBIs. In the top of the eighth inning, with a 5 to 1 lead, Double D hit his first career grand slam -- making the score 9-1 after driving in Matt Holliday, Allen Craig, and Jon Jay. He also scored three runs on the night as well.

Edison Volquez, who started for San Diego, lasted six innings as he gave up five runs on eight hits -- striking out five batters and walking just one. His record dropped to 3-5 on the season after the loss and seen his earned-run average climb to 5.76. He fell to 2-4 in eight career starts against the Cardinals and has allowed 28 runs on 36 hits in 44.0 innings.

The Padres bullpen had a rough night as well as both Anthony Bass and Tyson Ross got the calls following the end of the night for Volquez. Bass pitched two innings of work, giving up four runs on three hits as he was the pitcher that gave up the grand slam -- while Ross pitched one inning of work as he allowed one unearned run on two hits.

The Cardinals out hit San Diego 13 to 7 on the night too, as five players had at least two base hits or more -- as well as having five different players drive in a run. Matt Carpenter finished with two hits and one RBI, Beltran had two hits and two RBIs, and Holliday had one hit and one RBI.

St. Louis improved to 29-16 following the win and evened up the three game series at one game each as the two teams will play the rubber match on Wednesday night when the first pitch will be delievered at 9:10 pm Central Time. San Diego seen their record fall to 21-24 following the lost, but will look to redeem themselves in game three as the Cardinals are set to have rookie pitcher Tyler Lyons make his first career start.