CINCINNATI - Four Cardinals have hitting streaks of at least eight games. Another leads the NL in batting average. Overall, theyre the best in the league at hitting in the clutch. Its some formidable offence. And when they play their biggest rival, they really dont need all that much, anyway. Adam Wainwright pitched seven innings for his ninth win, and every Cardinals starter had a hit in a 9-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Friday night that gave St. Louis a four-game lead in the NL Central, its biggest of the season. Yes, its early. But yes, its impressive. "They just get in the habit of grinding at-bats and not giving any away and realizing theres money on the table out there," manager Mike Matheny said. Oh, and the pitchings been as good as it gets, too. Wainwright (9-3) gave up two runs and seven hits as the Cardinals improved the major leagues best record to 40-21. Things are going so well that they try to ignore how theyve started to give themselves a little room atop the division. "The cardinal sin — something we should never do and have done in the past — is look up at the scoreboard and try to figure out where they are," Wainwright said. "Its June. Well look at those things later in the season." On this June night, they had everything going. Slumping Pete Kozma drove in three runs, David Freese and Jon Jay knocked in two apiece, and four Cardinals extended long hitting streaks against a pitching staff in a downturn. Mike Leake (5-3) lasted only five innings for the Reds, who have given up 26 runs while losing their last three games. St. Louis scored six of its runs with two outs, one of their hallmarks this season. "Thats when they usually do their damage," manager Dusty Baker said. "Id like to find out their secret and bottle it." The NL Central rivalry has fallen into a pattern lately — the second-place Reds cant score many runs. Theyve scored two or fewer in their last six games against the Cardinals, the first time thats happened since 1974, the year before the Big Red Machine won its first World Series. St. Louis has won the last four series between the teams and is 5-2 against Cincinnati this season. A day after the Cardinals hit five homers for a 12-8 win over Arizona, they put together five singles in the fourth inning for all the runs theyd really need. The Cardinals came into the game with four players on noteworthy hitting streaks. Three of them extended their streaks during the three-run rally. Carlos Beltran led off with a single that gave him an eight-game streak. Allen Craig pushed his run to 11 games with another hit, completing a 12-pitch at-bat against Leake. Freese extended the longest active streak in the majors with an RBI single, giving him a career-best 17-game streak. Jon Jay and Kozma — in a 3-for-33 rut — followed with singles for a 3-0 lead. When runners were in scoring position, the Cardinals delivered. "I dont really see what we do different other than we get hits when we need them," said Kozma, who tied his career high with the three RBIs. That was plenty for Wainwright, who had only one tough at-bat in the first five innings. Shin-Soo Choo drew a base on balls on his 12th pitch from Wainwright, who has walked only seven batters all season. Jay Bruces RBI single ended Wainwrights shutout in the sixth. The only long hitting streak still in play for St. Louis got extended during a four-run sixth inning off Logan Ondrusek. Jay doubled home another run, Kozma doubled in two more, and Matt Carpenters RBI single made it 7-0 and extended his streak to a career-best 16 games. Yadier Molina doubled and singled, raising the NLs top batting average a point to .352. NOTES: St. Louis is 21-9 on the road, best in the majors. ... The Reds optioned RH Pedro Villarreal back to Triple-A Louisville, opening the way for LH Tony Cingrani to make a start next week for the injured Johnny Cueto. Villarreal struggled in his emergency start on Wednesday, a 12-4 loss to Colorado. ... Switch-hitting INF Henry Rodriguez was called up. ... 2B Brandon Phillips was back in the lineup after missing four games with a bruised left forearm. ... LH Tyler Lyons (2-1) makes his third start for the Cardinals on Saturday against Mat Latos (5-0), who has won his last nine decisions. Its the longest winning streak by a Reds pitcher since reliever Scott Sullivan won 10 straight decisions from 2001-02. Gil Jersey . 1 position. The Mustangs (6-0), who beat Queens 50-31 last weekend, earned 17 first-place votes and 287 points in voting by the Football Reporters of Canada. Western was last ranked first in the country in October 2011. Walace Jersey . Team physician Dr. Steve Traina performed the surgery Friday. Robinson was injured in a spill underneath the Nuggets basket during the first quarter of Wednesday nights loss to the Charlotte Bobcats. http://www.soccerbrazilonline.com/Dani-Alves-Copa-America-Jersey/ . Mats Zuccarello and Derek Stepan scored shootout goals, and backup goalie Cam Talbot earned his second win in two nights as the Rangers shook off a late tying tally and beat the Maple Leafs 2-1 Monday night. Casemiro Jersey . Roman Josi had a goal and an assist to lead the Predators to a 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Monday night. Diego Alves Jersey . Their experience showed Tuesday as the No. 10 Badgers blunted a Saint Louis surge to win 63-57 and advance to face West Virginia in Wednesdays finals of the Cancun Challenge. Somerset 184 (Wood 3-24, Rushworth 3-47) and 180 (Davies 49, van der Merwe 47, Onions 4-50) beat Durham 189 (Hickey 36*, van der Merwe 4-59) and 136 (Stoneman 57, van der Merwe 4-45, Leach 4-56) by 39 runs Scorecard Somerset closed off a remarkable victory on the third morning of their Specsavers County Championship game with Durham at Taunton.Defending a target of 176 and with Durham 130 for 5 overnight, they took the visitors last five wickets for just six runs in 22 balls, to win by 39 runs.It was a truly intriguing 17 minutes of play during which Somerset used the spinning Taunton wicket to devastating effect. Jack Leach, who took five first innings wickets and Roelof van der Merwe were the instigators taking three and two wickets respectively.Nightwatchman Graham Onions fell to Leach for 0, off the fifth ball of the day and off the left arm spinners very next delivery, Paul Coughlin was caught by Jim Allenby at slip.Stuart Poynter, who struck the only boundary of the morning, was eighth man out, lbw to Leach for 12, before van der Merwe dismissed Mark Wood and Chris Rushworth in successive balls to finish the job. Leach finished with figures of 4 for 46 and van der Merwe 4 for 45.I probably didnt see that happening overnight, CChris Rogers, the Somerset captain, said.ddddddddddddI thought we were in with an outside chance because the ball is turning and they had their tail end in. But it all went to plan.We beat the bat a lot yesterday evening, but today it all went our way and when that happens, its quite fortunate.To finish it that way is fantastic. All credit to the guys too, we were down and out on a couple of occasions in this game.But they fought and what was really nice was that a couple of people who probably havent contributed as much as they would have liked to so far this season, were the ones who stood up and that is such a good sign for the club.Durham coach Jon Lewis said: It unfolded pretty quickly towards the end didnt it? But then again, it was like that for much of the game. I mean we are finished 20 minutes into day three. I dont think this morning was the relevant part of the game. We got some good balls this morning and that can happen on a turning pitch.I think there are areas of the game that we could have been better in, over the first two days. But the players will lick their wounds and get back to it. ' ' '