The St Louis Cardinals belted three home runs off Houston ace Justin Verlander, but the bullpen couldn’t keep the lead, resulting in a 7-4 loss for the Redbirds on Monday night at Minute Maid Park.

Nolan Gorman accounted for two of the home runs, with solo shots in the first and fifth innings, to bring his total on the season to 13. Alec Burleson also sent one over the fence, while Nolan Arenado collected a single to score Paul Goldschmidt in the third. The Astros stayed on the Cardinals’ heels with runs in the third and sixth, but did the bulk of their damage in the eighth when Alex Bregman and Yainer Diaz hit home runs off reliever JoJo Romero, who was tagged with the loss. Jose Altuve added an RBI off a ground-rule double, closing out Romero’s line with four runs, three earned, off three hits and two strikeouts. Rafael Montero allowed one walk but claimed two strikeouts to take the win.

The Cardinals are 28-30 and remain seven games behind Milwaukee for the NL Central. Game two of the series at Houston is tonight, with first pitch at 7:10.