ST. LOUIS – Albert Pujols popped up with the bases loaded for the final out, and the Pittsburgh Pirates got an excellent pitching performance from Ian Snell in a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night.

Snell threw seven innings of three-hit ball and Xavier Nady had two RBIs, helping the Pirates snap a four-game losing streak. Salomon Torres escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth, retiring Chris Duncan on a shallow fly to left and Pujols on a foul popup to third.

Anthony Reyes barely made it out of the first inning for the Cardinals, who are 1-5 at home since clinching the 2006 World Series. St. Louis swept a three-game series at Pittsburgh last week, beating Snell even though he allowed only one run in seven innings.

Freddy Sanchez singled and tripled for the Pirates, who are 5-2 on the road after finishing 24-57 away from home last year – the worst record in the NL. Pittsburgh, which returned to action after two rainouts at home last weekend, was 1-13 on the road to start 2006 and didn’t win its fifth road game until June 5.

Snell (1-1) allowed one run with six strikeouts and four walks, two coming in his final inning when the Cardinals got an RBI single from Adam Kennedy and had the bases loaded with one out before pinch-hitter Skip Schumaker fouled out and David Eckstein grounded out.

Scott Rolen singled twice for the Cardinals, one with two outs in the first and the other leading off the seventh. Between those at-bats, Snell retired 16 of 17 batters with the stretch interrupted only by Yadier Molina’s two-out walk in the fifth.

His toughest inning by far was the seventh, when he faced seven hitters.

Jim Edmonds drove in his first run of the season with a bloop single off Damaso Marte that cut the deficit to one in the eighth. Torres worked the ninth for his fifth save in six chances, completing a six-hitter.

Reyes (0-2) needed 47 pitches to escape the first, allowing three hits and walking two while the Pirates took a 3-0 lead. The first run scored on Jason Bay’s bases-loaded, full-count walk, and Nady followed with a two-run single.

Reyes held off the Pirates his last four innings, stranding Sanchez after a leadoff triple in the third and getting Adam LaRoche on a double-play ball with runners on first and third to end the fifth. In five innings, Reyes gave up three runs and six hits.

Duncan was 1-for-5 for the Cardinals, making him 8-for-15 the last four games. Much criticized for his outfield play last season, Duncan also made the defensive stop of the game with a diving grab on Sanchez’s sinking liner for the first out in the eighth.

Notes: Pirates LHP John Grabow (elbow irritation) allowed two hits and struck out one in a scoreless inning in his second rehab appearance for Triple-A Indianapolis. … Pittsburgh went 64 innings without an error before LaRoche botched a slow grounder to first in the ninth. … The Pirates were 1-5 at Busch Stadium last year.

AP-ES-04-16-07 2309EDT