"Seven times this season, the Cardinals have had the chance to win a fifth game in succession, a modest streak for a team purporting to contend for a title. Seven times they have failed.

Righthander Chris Carpenter has been the starting pitcher on four of those occasions and, though he had a strong stretch in the middle of his stint Friday, he also gave up five runs in the second inning, not helped by his defense. The Cardinals rallied from 5-0 and 6-5 deficits, but rookie Yonder Alonso's two-run homer off lefthander Marc Rzepczynski in the seventh put the Cincinnati Reds ahead to stay.

The Cardinals' longest winning streak remained at four as the Reds posted an 11-8 win at Busch Stadium before a fairly unimpressive paid crowd of 36,970.

For the record, the Cardinals now are 8½ games behind in both the divisional and wild-card races with 24 games remaining.

Reds third baseman Juan Francisco, just up from the minors, started the Reds' scoring with a two-run double in the second and ended it with a three-homer to dead center off Kyle McClellan in the ninth after McClellan had hit Miguel Cairo with two out.

Carpenter had been offered only two runs of support the first three times he had a chance to extend a winning streak to five, but that was not the case on Friday as the Cardinals roughly treated Johnny Cueto, the major leagues' earned run average leader."