R.B. Fallstrom

ST. LOUIS -- All Ken Hitchcock has to do is bow his head and frown. That's the respect he gets these days from the St. Louis Blues.

The Blues are near the top of the Western Conference, rarified air for the franchise in recent seasons. The players credit their savvy, veteran coach, who was hired 13 games into the season and arrived with a track record of prodding teams to the top on short notice.

ST. LOUIS -- The bumbling Brewers made four errors that led to three unearned runs, and the St. Louis Cardinals survived a short start by Jaime Garcia to beat Milwaukee 7-1 Friday night and take a 3-2 lead in the NL championship series.

Yadier Molina and Matt Holliday had three hits each for St. Louis, which burst to a 3-0 lead in the second when Molina doubled in a run and third baseman Jerry Hairston Jr. allowed Garcia's grounder to go through his legs. Holliday capped the scoring with a two-run double in the eighth.

Milwaukee's infield nearly had a cycle of errors, with second baseman Rickie Weeks and shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt also committing miscues along with reliever Marco Estrada. Weeks had committed the Brewers' only two errors in the first four games of the series.

ST. LOUIS -- T.J. Oshie was among the last men standing in the St. Louis Blues' annual on-ice endurance test, skating a few victory laps after the rest of his eight-player group had bowed to fatigue.

It was exactly what the front office wanted to see.

"I'm coming in a lot more mature than I have ever, that's for sure," the 24-year-old Oshie said Friday. "I'm ready to get it going."

ST. LOUIS -- Perhaps Sam Bradford's lone non-football outlet these days, his get-away-from-it-all sanctuary, is video games.

ST. LOUIS -- Last fall, Keith Null and Mike Reilly were opposing quarterbacks combining for 91 points, 883 yards passing and eight touchdowns in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.