Yankees Are Routed by Cardinals

Joe Torre’s first game in St. Louis since being fired as the Cardinals’ manager a decade ago was far from a happy homecoming.

The Cardinals began their second consecutive high-profile series with a strong start from Jason Marquis and a big game from Albert Pujols in an 8-1 victory over the stumbling New York Yankees on Friday night.

Marquis (8-3) gave up a run and six hits in eight innings and Pujols singled, doubled and homered for St. Louis, which took two of three from the Boston Red Sox in a World Series rematch that ended Wednesday.

The Yankees’ first visit to St. Louis since the 1964 World Series featured a sellout crowd of 50,250 -- the largest at Busch Stadium since a manually operated scoreboard was installed in center field and several thousand seats were removed in 1997.

Derek Jeter’s 1,800th career hit, an RBI double in the fifth, was the lone highlight for the Yankees, who have lost eight of 10. Three errors contributed to three unearned runs for an already struggling Chien-Ming Wang (3-2), who filled in for sore-shouldered Kevin Brown and gave up seven runs in a season-low four innings.

Torre managed the Cardinals from 1990 to ’95 and played for them for six years.