Matt Carpenter and Jhonny Peralta homered to back up a second straight dominant start by Jaime Garcia as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-2 on Wednesday night.

Jaime Garcia (9-8) needed just 85 pitches to get through 8-plus innings and 19 of his 24 outs were ground balls or strikeouts. The lefty has given up two runs in his last 16 innings.

Carpenter's homer in the first inning was his second leadoff home run of the season and 11th of his career. It was also Carpenter's second career homer against Reds starter Anthony DeScalfani.

Peralta's solo homer in fourth was the 200th of his career. Peralta is hitting .345 in August.

Seung-Hwan Oh earned his 10th save in 11 tries.

Carlos Martinez gets the call in the opener of a four-game series at Chicago. In two starts against the Cubs this year, both at home, he's 1-1 with a 5.25 ERA.