Cardinals Improve to 11-1 in 'Close Games' with 5-3 Defeat of Marlins

Not a team that is going to win games in blowout fashion very often, the Cardinals keep finding ways to win close games – even though manager Oliver Marmol would prefer the occasional breather. Alec Burleson delivered two hits and two RBI, Nathan Church drilled a two-run homer and Dustin May delivered his third straight strong start as the Cardinals beat the Marlins 5-3 in Miami. Nathan Church no-doubter!

😤 pic. twitter. com/qKp63bBDkt — St.

Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) April 21, 2026 With the victory, the Cardinals improved to 11-1 on the season in games decided by two runs or less. The score tightened up in the eighth inning when veteran reliever Ryne Stanek walked three batters and surrendered two earned runs, but George Soriano got the Cards out of a jam and Riley O’Brien pitched a scoreless ninth for his seventh save. “Oli said it to us earlier that when he looks up at the out-of-town scores and teams will be winning 12-1 and 13-1 and he was giving us crap about why we couldn’t do that,” joked Burleson, who singled in a run in the first inning and added a fifth-inning double.

“But we have a resilient group, and we know that we're never out of it at any point in the game. We've got the right guys to be able to do what we're doing. " Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s victory: May’s day again for the Cards May, who signed a one-year, $12 million free agent contract with the Cardinals in December, got off to about as bad of a start as possible.