The Cardinals tried to make sure that Oliver Marmol had a memorable 40th birthday on Thursday when the traveling party hired a local Mariachi band to serenade the manager before the game.

As it turns out, the band was just the opening act for a Cardinals’ offense that finally came alive and erupted in Thursday’s seventh inning to make Marmol’s birthday memorable for other reasons.

Trailing by two entering the seventh inning, the Cardinals banged out seven hits and scored seven times in the frame to turn a taut game into a run-away laugher. Jordan Walker homered and drove in four runs, Nathan Church hit a game-tying two-run homer and the Cards used the big seventh inning to throttle the Braves 11-5 on Thursday night at stunned Truist Field.

"Unreal, but we showed what we can do as an offense and on the pitching side, heck of a job for them to lock in and to have the bullpen come into a tough situation," Walker told Cardinals.TV. "All around good win, honestly."

The Cardinals (45-39) lost tough-luck starter Dustin May after a five-run first inning that included a 91.6 mph line drive off his right ankle. However, they got a three-run homer from Walker in the first inning, a game-tying, two-run shot from Church in the game-turning seventh inning and a 395-foot bomb from Alec Burleson in the ninth inning. The Cardinals finished with 15 hits and tied a season high in runs in one of the best all-around performances in weeks.

Relievers Justin Bruihl (2 2/3 innings), Ryan Fernandez (1 2/3 innings), Gordon Graceffo (one inning), JoJo Romero (one inning-plus), George Soriano (one inning) and Matt Svanson (one inning) made the victory possible with their scoreless work when May didn’t make it out of the first inning. On a night when every Braves reliever surrendered at least one run, none of the Cardinals six relievers allowed a score over 8 1/3 innings of three-hit baseball.

The Cardinals went into the seventh inning trailing 5-3, but got the rally started with a Masyn Winn looping single. Church then hit a first-pitch slider for his seventh homer of the season to knot the score at 5. It was Church who hit a three-run homer in the first game of the series to pave the way for a Cardinals win.

St. Louis didn’t stop there in the seventh. Blaze Jordan walked, Jose Fermin singled and Wetherholt did the same after twice failing to get a bunt down in fair territory. Ivan Herrera drilled a liner to plate Fermin and Walker smashed a 109.6 mph grounder through a drawn-in infield to plate Wetherholt. Lars Nootbaar then followed with 109 mph double to score Alec Burleson, and Walker later scored by using a swim-move slide to avoid Drake Baldwin’s tag at the plate.

The big inning and series win should give the Cardinals some momentum to take along with them to Chicago where they will take on the Cubs on Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Andre Pallante (9-5, 3.83) takes on new Chicago pitcher David Peterson (4-6, 5.86) in the first game of the three-game series.

A first inning that started absolutely delightful for the Cardinals turned disastrous by the end of the frame. Following a leadoff single by Wetherholt and Herrera being hit by a pitch for the MLB-most 22nd time, Walker ended a 14-game homerless drought with a towering shot over the wall in left-center. Walker’s career-best 19th long ball of the season gave the Cardinals an early 3-0 lead.

However, the lead was short-lived when May struggled and then suffered some awful luck. After allowing an inning-opening single to Baldwin, May showed some of the rustiness of missing his last start by walking Ozzie Albies and Matt Olson to load the bases. May then struck out Michael Harris II looking, but he didn’t get a 1-2 fastball up enough and Mauricio Dubon lined it into center for Atlanta’s first run.

Then, came the disastrous part when Dominic Smith lined a 91.6 mph shot off May’s right ankle. Making matters worse, the ball deflected down the right field line, allowing all three runners to come around and score and give the Braves a shocking 4-3 lead.

May stayed in the game for three more batters, but Austin Riley reached on an infield single, and Mike Yastrzemski drilled a sacrifice fly to score Smith. After Jim Jarvis reached on another hit, May was pulled after throwing his 34th pitch.     

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