The Cardinals were able to complete the sweep of the Orioles tonight with a 9-6 victory. They are now tied for first with Milwaukee.

Lance Berkman had two home runs, one from each side of the plate, to help the Cards beat the O's 9-6. LB now has 20 homers.

The Redbirds got a big pick up with Lance Berkman in the designated hitter role. He hit two blasts in the game, one from each side of the plate. Impressive? Yes, I think so! He has 20 homers.

The Cards got things going in the second when Tony Cruz singled to knock in David Freese. Skip Schumaker hit a sac fly to score Yadier Molina.

In the fourth, Ryan Theriot singled to score Tony Cruz. Jon Jay homered to score Skip and TheRiot.

Jaime Garcia got his seventh win of the season despite giving up five earned runs on 10 hits. He gave up home runs to Nolan Reimold and Mark Reynolds and also struck out three.

Jason Motte, Trever Miller and Mitchell Boggs pitched in relief. Boggs gave up a run, but also got a K in the effort.

Fernando Salas earned his 13th save of the season.

Here’s the Cardinals.com game story!

Prior to the game, RHP Brandon Dickson was announced as the man who will take Ryan Franklin’s spot on the roster. Here’s the Cardinals.com story on the move. Dickson will have a role similar to Lance Lynn as they will both be long relievers, although Lynn’s role may get tweaked.

Also, some interesting reads for you!

Here’s a little something from the Post-Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz about Ryan Franklin.

These paragraphs from Bernie are interesting food for thought:

Even now, I never understood the plan for Franklin. The bosses firmly stated the belief that Franklin would regroup and become an important member of the bullpen. But they never had a plan to make that happen. They just tucked Franklin into a corner of the bullpen and let him decay.

The disabled list could have provided the opportunity for a revival. In theory, Franklin would have benefited from a chance to pitch regularly and sharpen up during a minor-league rehab assignment. But the Cardinals, citing ethics, refused. Franklin wasn’t hurt, so the DL wasn’t an option. The Cardinals didn’t want to violate the spirit of the rule.

Oh, please. First of all, the organization had no ethical concerns when they signed Franklin. In 2005 he’d been suspended for 10 days after failing an official MLB test for performance-enhancing drugs. So you’ll have to pardon my cynicism.

Finally, here’s a good read from Cardinals.com about the embracing of social media from some of the teams young guys.

Miranda Remaklus is lead St. Louis Cardinals contributor to Aaron Miles’ Fastball. Follow her on Twitter, @missmiranda