Cardinals 7, Pirates 0: Adam Wainwright continued his brilliant season with eight scoreless innings and Jhonny Peralta recorded his eighth career multi-homer game as St. Louis rolled past visiting Pittsburgh.

The Cardinals have won each of the three starts by Wainwright (5-1) via the shutout with the talented right-hander tossing 24 flawless innings over those three games. He allowed three singles and a pair of walks in this one, while the bulk of his run support came from Peralta, who has only 16 hits on the season, six of which are home runs.

Matt Holliday, Allen Craig and Yadier Molina drove in the other runs for St. Louis, which had scored only one run in each of its previous three games. Their first six runs in this one came against Edinson Volquez (1-2), who lasted 5 2/3 innings and watched his ERA soar from 1.93 to 3.21.

With the Cardinals leading 1-0 in the fifth, Peralta obliterated a 1-1 offering from Volquez into the upper deck in left field for a solo shot. He came up again in the sixth, this time with two runners on, and deposited a 3-2 pitch into the left-field bullpen to make it 6-0.

That, of course, was more than enough offense for Wainwright, who allowed back-to-back hits to open the third inning before retiring the next three hitters and later struck out Neil Walker with two runners on in the sixth. Holliday gave St. Louis a quick 1-0 lead with his first-inning sacrifice fly and Craig delivered an RBI single to make it 3-0 right before Peralta's second blast of the game.

GAME NOTEBOOK: The Pirates challenged a safe call at first base on Yadier Molina's grounder shortly before Peralta's second home run. The original ruling that first baseman Ike Davis came off the bag to field a low throw was upheld via replay. ... St. Louis RP Carlos Martinez struck out all three batters he faced to complete the shutout. ... Pittsburgh CF Andrew McCutchen, who entered as a .419 career hitter in 31 at-bats against Wainwright, went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts against the right-hander before striking out again versus Martinez in the ninth.