The St. Louis Cardinals overcame a poor first inning, and manager Oliver Marmol thinks they can still overcome a shaky start to the season.

They took a step in that direction by beating the Chicago Cubs 7-5 on Sunday, chasing ace Marcus Stroman in the fourth inning to earn a split of their weekend series at London Stadium.

The Cubs missed a chance to get back to .500 after Stroman (9-5) left the game with a blister on his right index finger, and the Cardinals ended a two-game skid after an error-filled first inning handed the Cubs a 4-0 lead.

Paul Goldschmidt hit a go-ahead RBI single that knocked Stroman out of the game, and Willson Contreras went 4 for 4 with two runs scored.

Jordan Hicks, who sat out Saturday because of illness, got the final three outs to record his fourth save – all in the past eight days. He struck out two and allowed one run on Nico Hoerner’s sacrifice fly.

The Cardinals bullpen allowed one run over 6 2/3 innings before a crowd of 55,565 with the temperature at 87 degrees at the start.

Jake Woodford (2-2) came in for spot starter Matthew Liberatore in the third and pitched 2 1/3 innings.

The Cardinals (32-45) erased a 4-0 deficit with timely hitting and a big assist from Cubs first baseman Trey Mancini.

With the bases loaded in the second, Stroman struck out Paul DeJong for the second out. Tommy Edman then grounded to second but Hoerner’s underhanded toss to Mancini was dropped by the first baseman when he tried to grab it with his bare hand – allowing Contreras to score to make it 4-1. Stroman smacked his mitt in frustration.

Brendan Donovan hit a two-run single to right field on a sinker – batters swung at 17 Stroman sinkers and missed just three – scoring Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker, who beat the throw with a head-first slide to make it 4-3.

An inning later, the Cards pulled even at 4-4 on Walker’s single that scored Lars Nootbaar.

Goldschmidt put the “home” team ahead in the fourth on a sharp single off Stroman that scored Edman.

Stroman was then pulled and the first batter reliever Michael Fulmer faced was Nootbaar, whose sacrifice fly scored Donovan for a 6-4 lead.

An inning later, the Cards made it 7-4 when Gorman’s single to left off Fulmer drove in Contreras.