Austin Wells homers twice as Yankees down Cardinals

Austin Wells hit a tiebreaking two-run homer with two outs in the third inning, belted another two-run drive in the eighth and Marcus Stroman pitched seven innings for his third straight win as the host New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-3 on Friday.

Juan Soto hit a game-tying double in the three-run third off St. Louis starter Erick Fedde before Wells hit his 11th homer of the season to give New York a 4-2 lead. Wells added his second homer with two outs in the eighth for a 6-3 lead.

Stroman allowed two runs and survived tying a season high by allowing nine hits while completing seven innings for the first time since May 31 at San Francisco. The right-hander struck out five, walked none, and got seven groundouts, including double plays on Pedro Pages and Lars Nootbaar in the fourth and sixth, respectively.

Soto tied the score when he hit a double to the bottom of the center field wall with one out in the third to score Gleyber Torres from first base. After Fedde retired Aaron Judge, Wells hit an 0-1 changeup into the right-center field seats just over the leaping try of right fielder Jordan Walker.

Soto also potentially prevented a run in the fifth with an outfield assist.

With one out, Alec Burleson singled to right but Soto played the ball cleanly off the wall. He made a strong throw to shortstop Anthony Volpe, who tagged out Burleson as the St. Louis designated hitter overslid second.

It was Soto's 10th outfield assist this season, matching his total from last season when he played 154 games in the outfield for the San Diego Padres.

Giancarlo Stanton doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Volpe in the second as the Yankees won for the sixth time in nine games and improved to 19-11 in their past 30.

Paul Goldschmidt had three hits off Stroman and his RBI single put the Cardinals ahead 2-1 in the third. Brendan Donovan also had a run-scoring single for the Cardinals, who are 0-7 all-time in the regular season against the Yankees in New York.

Nolan Arenado homered with two outs in the eighth off Jake Cousins. Tommy Kahnle got the last out of the eighth and Clay Holmes converted his 29th save.

Fedde allowed four runs on four hits in 5 1/3 innings. The right-hander struck out eight, walked one and fell to 1-4 since being acquired from the Chicago White Sox at the trade deadline.