Matt Holliday and David Freese both did so well today, here’s a picture of them together!

It started out quite ugly, but the Cardinals pulled away for a 13-5 win over the Astros and … Most importantly, the sweep!

The Cardinals are now 68-56 with a one game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates for the second position in the Wild Card standings. And in the NL Central? The Cardinals are 7.5 games back with a big three-game series in Cincinnati this weekend.

That’s right kids! Things are getting interesting!

But, let’s talk about this afternoon’s game because it was pretty excellent!

* How about the fifth inning? Going into the bottom of the fifth, it was 5-3 Astros. The inning began with a single from Rafael Furcal. Ryan Jackson was brought in to pinch hit for Jake Westbrook. Ryan got his first major league hit with a single to right. Jon Jay reached base on sacrifice bunt when Brett Wallace committed a throwing error. The bases were loaded for Allen Craig. Allen singled to score Furcal. The bases remained loaded for Matt Holliday. Holliday proved to be quite clutch as he knocked a double to center to score Jackson, Jay and Craig.  Beltran struck out on a foul tip. Yadi singled to right allowing Holliday to score.

The Cardinals completed turned it around that inning and came out of it with an 8-5 lead!

* David Freese. He snapped out of quite the funk after getting the day off yesterday! Freesey was 3 for 4 with four RBI and a walk. Guess what else Freese did? That’s right! He hit his 17th homer of the season. With Carlos Beltran and Yadi aboard, Freese belted a three-run shot to right field.

* The Rest of the Line up? Jon Jay was 2 of 4. Allen Craig was 3 of 5 with three RBI. Yadi was 2 of 3 with an RBI and a walk. Furcal was 2 of 4 with an RBI. Sounds like a nice team effort, huh?!

* Westbrook and The ‘Pen. Jake didn’t exactly pitch his best stuff Thursday but he was the pitcher of record when the Cards went ahead in the fifth inning. So, Jake is now 13-9. He pitched five innings, gave up seven hits, five earned runs and a two walks. He only struck out one. Barret Browning pitch a third of an inning. He gave up a hit, walked one and struck out one in that short period of time. He earned his fourth hold of the season. Edward Mujica pitched 1.2 innings. He struck out three. He earned his 20th hold of the season. Fernando Salas pitched an inning in which he gave up one hit but struck out one. And Marc Rzepczynski pitched one inning, giving up two hits and striking out one.

* Big Series Vs. Reds. The Cardinals head into a huge series with the Cincinnati Reds this weekend at Great American Ballpark. On Friday, Lance Lynn takes the mound for the Cardinals against Mat Latos and the Reds. The game starts at 6:10 p.m. Central and will be on FSMW.

Go Cardinals!

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