CHICAGO – Scott Rolen made up for the absence of Albert Pujols with a three-run homer, and Chris Carpenter had another solid outing to lead the St. Louis Cardinals over the Chicago Cubs 4-3 Monday night.

Carpenter (7-1) tied his career-best with his sixth straight win, giving up three runs and nine hits in 8 1-3 innings with six strikeouts and no walks. Reggie Sanders also homered for the Cardinals, who have won 10 of their last 12.

Jason Isringhausen got the final out for his 13th save in 16 chances.

Corey Patterson and Glendon Rusch homered for the Cubs, and Chicago pitchers limited the Cardinals to just one hit over the final five innings. But it wasn’t enough to keep Chicago from losing for the ninth time in 13 games.

Rusch (2-1) gave up four runs and six hits in seven innings.

Carpenter has been a good-luck charm of sorts for the Cardinals, who have won in each of his last eight starts, and they needed a boost without Pujols. The NL batting champion missed his first game of the season after straining his left hamstring running the bases Sunday, and the Cardinals don’t know when he’ll return.

Giants 10, Rockies 5

DENVER – Pedro Feliz homered twice and Yorvit Torrealba hit a three-run homer that staked San Francisco to a five-run lead in the first inning of the Giants’ 10-5 win over the Colorado Rockies on Monday.

Pinch-hitter Damon Minor singled home the tiebreaking run in the seventh inning. The Giants won three of four and sent Colorado to its fifth series loss at Coors Field this season.

Feliz hit a solo homer in the eighth and a two-run homer in the ninth for his 10th and 11th homers of the year.

Feliz had his third career multihomer game and second of the year.

It was Denver’s hottest June 7 ever – breaking a 130-year-old record. The temperature at first pitch was 93 degrees, but it quickly climbed to 98.

Rangers 6, Pirates 5

ARLINGTON, Texas – Hank Blalock hit an RBI single with two outs in the 10th inning, and the Texas Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-5 Monday night in the first interleague game of the season.

Blalock’s looper to center, on a full-count pitch from Mike Johnston (0-3), dropped in front of charging outfielder Tike Redman to score Laynce Nix.

Nix had reached on a similar hit, a flyball to center knocked down by a gusty wind that fell several feet in front of the outfielder. Michael Young’s two-out single sent Nix to third.

The Pirates, with manager Lloyd McClendon back after a two-game suspension, lost for the eighth time in nine games despite scoring more than three runs for the first time in that span.

Texas has never lost to the Pirates.

But the Rangers, who left Pittsburgh with a three-game sweep two years ago in their only other series, struck out a season-high 15 times against five pitchers.

Interleague play began in 1997 when the Rangers hosted San Francisco. Texas hosted the first of three AL vs. NL games Monday night. Houston played at Seattle, and Cincinnati was at Oakland.

Both teams got runners to third in the ninth before inning-ending strikeouts. And both had running catches in the outfield.

Alfonso Soriano led off the Texas ninth with a single against Salomon Torres, then moved up on a groundout and wild pitch before Chad Allen struck out.

Rob Mackowiak had a leadoff single and was stranded when Redman struck out against Francisco Cordero (2-0).

Mackowiak tracked down Brad Fullmer’s flyball near the fence in the left-center gap after Soriano’s leadoff hit. Nix went a long way to get Bobby Hill’s flyball in the right-center gap before Redman struck out.

Texas starter R.A. Dickey, 0-4 in seven starts since May 2, had a 5-3 lead after Gary Matthews Jr. hit a two-run single in the fifth.

But Dickey was out of the game an inning later when Craig Wilson hit a tying two-run homer, his 13th, two outs after Jason Kendall’s leadoff single.

The Pirates led 3-0 for Kip Wells, a Texas native who was 4-1 with a 1.97 ERA in eight previous appearances against the Rangers when pitching for the White Sox from 1999-2001.

Redman and Jose Castillo, the bottom two hitters in Pittsburgh’s lineup, both drove in runs in the second, with Redman getting an RBI single and Castillo a two-run single that made it 3-0.

But Brad Fullmer’s sacrifice fly in the second pushed home Texas’ first run, and Mark Teixeira followed with his eighth homer, a two-run shot that tied the game.

Wells struck out four of his first seven batters, walking the other three. He struck out eight and walked five, throwing 62 of 112 pitches for strikes and allowing seven hits over 4 2-3 innings.

Notes: Randall Simon has just one hit in 21 at-bats after going 0-2 as the Pittsburgh’s DH. … Wells is 1-3 with a 5.79 ERA his last nine starts since going 2-1 with a 1.89 ERA his first three. … Texas has scored 651 runs in interleague play, the most by any team since the AL and NL teams started playing each other in the regular season. … Pirates SS Jack Wilson went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts, ending an 11-game hitting streak.

AP-ES-06-07-04 2354EDT