"Veteran Lance Berkman has done many things in his first season with the Cardinals. But tonight he achieved something he hadn't done in nearly three years.

Berkman doubled and tripled in the same game. He tripled for the first time this season and scored the Cardinals' second run in the fourth inning at Sun Life Stadium against the Florida Marlins.

Then, in the eighth inning of a tie game, after Berkman had made a strong running catch in the bottom of the seventh, Berkman doubled to drive in the go-ahead run as the Cardinals held on for a 3-2 victory.

Albert Pujols doubled high off the left-center-field wall to open the eighth inning. Matt Holliday, the cleanup hitter who had homered for the fourth time in five games in the fourth, nevertheless gave himself up this time, fisting an inside pitch to the right side, with the grounder moving Pujols to third.

Marlins manager Jack McKeon had two relievers up but left a perhaps tiring Sanchez in and Berkman plugged the right-center-field gap with Pujols trotting home. Berkman had not doubled and tripled in the same game since Aug. 30, 2008 when he played for Houston against the Cardinals. He has had only one triple in each of the last three seasons.

For the sixth time in six meetings with the Marlins (the Cardinals have won four), the Cardinals' starting pitcher neither gained a win or a loss."