Baseball, St. Louis Cardinals | featured news

The St. Louis Cardinals, who have faced pitching questions all the way back to spring training, pulled of a three-team trade Wednesday to beef up their rotation with right-hander Edwin Jackson....

The St. Louis Cardinals persuaded another star player to stick around. This time it was really expensive and took a little longer than anticipated. Matt Holliday agreed Tuesday to a $120 million, seven-year contract that is baseball's richest deal of the offseason and the biggest in franchise history. Just like Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen before him, the power-hitting outfielder arrived in a trade and decided St. Louis was the best place for him.

Manny Ramirez and Andre Ethier provided the offense as the Dodgers got a strong outing from Vicente Padilla to advance to the National League Championship Series for the second year in a row.

Yorvit Torrealba hit a two-run homer, Aaron Cook pitched effectively into the sixth inning and the Colorado Rockies beat Hamels and the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4 to even their NL playoff series at a game apiece.