It was a late game, but a good late game to stay up for Cardinals fans!

Three very awesome things transpired:

*Jaime Garcia pitched like a rock-star. On the road, even! Garcia has never fared well away from Busch Stadium. Wednesday night, Jaime wanted to buck his own trend. And buck it, he did!

Garcia, now 3-2 on the season, pitched 7.1 innings and gave up one earned run. Get this? He struck out 9 batters. NINE!  That equals a career high for him, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Fernando Salas and Marc Rzepczynski helped Garcia finish off the eighth inning, facing a batter each. Jason Motte got his 7th save of the season for pitching the ninth.  Motte got two strike outs.

* David Freese broke an 0-17 streak. Freese was 3 for 4 on Wednesday. In the fourth inning, David singled to left but was called out at second base. In seventh inning, he launched his eighth home run of the season with a bomb to left field. The blast broke a 1-1 tie game. And in the ninth inning, Freese hit a double to right field. Very nice to see him getting back on track and hitting well.

*Skip Schumaker was clutch off the bench. In the eighth inning, Schumaker was brought in for Tyler Greene. With Jaime Garcia at third base and Rafael Furcal at second after hitting a double, Schumaker was at the plate. Skip hit a fly ball double to left field, scoring Garcia and Furcal to make the score 4-1.

The Cardinals play the Giants again this afternoon at 2:45 p.m. CT, at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Adam Wainwright takes the mound for the Cards as Matt Cain goes for the Giants.

Miranda Remaklus is lead St. Louis Cardinals contributor to Aaron Miles’ Fastball. She’s also senior reporter for Aerys Offsides in the NFL section. Follow her on Twitter, @missmiranda.