The St Louis Cardinals broke a tie in the fourth and extended the lead in the fifth, taking care of the Washington Nationals on Sunday afternoon 8-3 at Nationals Park.

Nolan Gorman and Dylan Carlson opened the scoring in the second for the Cardinals with their RBIs, only for Juan Yepez and Riley Adams to follow suit in the home half of the inning. Gorman gave the Cardinals the lead for good in the fourth with a single to left field. St Louis would break the game open in the next frame, with Willson Contreras hitting an RBI single and Nolan Arenado bringing in another two runs off a single. The Nationals and Cardinals each added a run to cap the scoring. The Cardinals defense also proved key in the win, engineering three double plays to counter the Nationals’ 11 hits. The victory went to Kyle Gibson, who allowed nine of those hits and two walks while striking out eight.

The Cardinals improve to 47-42, five games behind Milwaukee in the NL Central and a half-game ahead of San Diego for the second wild card spot.

Before the Redbirds come home to face the Royals, they’ll have one more game in Washington on Monday afternoon, with first pitch at 3:05.