ST. LOUIS (AP) — Matt Carpenter hit a two-run homer after subbing for an injured Carlos Beltran and the St. Louis Cardinals chased Matt Cain before a 3 1/2 hour rain delay in the seventh inning of a 3-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants for a 2-1 series lead Wednesday night.

Kyle Lohse worked around a season-worst five walks in 5 2-3 innings. Mitchell Boggs struck out Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt with two on to end the seventh and Jason Motte earned the first two-inning save of his career to reward what remained of a sellout crowd of 45,850, perhaps a third, that stuck around.

Giants second baseman Marco Scutaro had two hits and a clean game in the field, two days after Matt Holliday rammed him breaking up a double-play ball. Manager Bruce Bochy had said there would be no retaliation, and Game 3 was collision-free.

Carpenter entered the game 1 for 5 in the postseason, all five pinch-hit appearances. He had an RBI single in the wild-card playoff against Atlanta. He got 14 of his 46 RBIs in April as the primary sub at first base for injured Lance Berkman.

Detroit-NY postponed

DETROIT (AP) — Game 4 of the AL championship series between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees has been postponed by bad weather in the area — although Comerica Park itself was still dry when the game was called.

Wednesday night’s game was rescheduled for Thursday at 4:07 p.m., when Game 5 was originally slated to be played. Detroit leads the best-of-seven series 3-0.

The first pitch had been scheduled for 8:07 p.m., but shortly before then the crowd was informed of the delay. A radar forecast for the Detroit area was eventually posted on the scoreboard video screen, as if to explain to fans why there was no baseball despite what was still rather pleasant weather at the ballpark.

The postponement was announced after a delay of about 1 hour, 10 minutes.