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A blitz that began with Andre Pallante’s first curveball of the game did not relent until the Cubs were well on their way to another nationally broadcast rout of the Cardinals.

The demolitions have been televised.

The Cubs drubbed the Cardinals, 9-1, on Saturday night at Busch Stadium after establishing a 9-0 lead in the first five innings. Michael Busch socked that curveball for a leadoff double and would finish the game with a home run and three RBIs. All of that came off Pallante. All of it came before the end of the second inning. The Cubs draped six runs off the Cardinals’ starter before he could get six outs and bounced him from the game shy of finishing the second inning.

Busch brought his production against the Cardinals south to the ballpark that shares his name. He launched the Cubs to their early and massive lead with a three-run homer that was also his sixth homer of the season against the Cardinals.

He’s the fourth Cub since 1993 to have at least six homers in a season against their archrivals. Propelled by a three-homer game earlier this season, he’s the first Cub since Derrek Lee in 2005 to have at least six homers vs. the Cardinals, and the other two in the past 30 years were Sammy Sosa (twice, including 1998, of course) and Moises Alou.

Busch has scored a dozen runs against the Cardinals this summer.

National televised games against historic teams, especially the Cubs, have been unkind to the Cardinals. On their first road trip of the season and first appearance on Sunday Night Baseball, the Cardinals lost, 18-7 at Fenway Park. They were back on ESPN from Wrigley Field in early July and lost, 11-0, to the Cubs. Former Cardinals starter and forever Hall of Famer John Smoltz was in town for Saturday’s game on Fox Sports, and the Cardinals mustered a run.

The series concludes with an ESPN national telecast Sunday.

On Saturday’s Baseball Night in America, the Cardinals were 5-0 by the time Smoltz finished his opening arguments for Yadier Molina to join him with a plaque in Cooperstown, New York. Molina, the longtime and highly decorated catcher, visited this weekend as a guest coach for two games.

He was there in the dugout for the shutout Friday.

He was there in the dugout for the dud Saturday.

The Cubs took control of the game swiftly. A pair of hits and a misplay opened up the scoring, and by the time the Cardinals got their second hit of the game the Cubs had scored at least a run in each of the first five innings.

They had a nine-run lead.

Cubs starter Colin Rea (9-5) held the Cardinals to one run on three hits through his six innings and he struck out six.

Pallante’ bruising, short outing

Since back-to-back wins in the middle of June, Pallante has been unable to string quality starts together. In his previous two outings, he limited the Marlins and Padres to two runs in 12 innings, and both of them scored against him this past week in a loss at Petco Park.

But in the three before that he allowed at least five runs – in each.

His start against the Cubs on Saturday was both brutal and short.

Pallante struggled to land his knuckle curveball, and he seemed to shelve his fastball at times, too. He relied mostly on his slider, and that got rocked for the three-run homer that was the biggest welt on his pitching line. On the slider, Pallante got one swing and miss and 10 swings – five of which put a ball in play. He had difficulty both landing pitches in the zone and not having them drilled when he did.

Three of the first four batters reached base against him before he got groundballs hit to teammates. In the second inning, he invited trouble with a walk to the No. 9 hitter and four other hits in that inning. He was not around to get the third out of the second inning.

Pallante’s shortest start of the season would yield more runs for the Cubs (six) than outs collected for the Cardinals (five). He scattered seven hits – and only two of the eight runners who reached against him did not score.

The outing left him and the Cardinals 1-7 in his previous eight starts.

He’s allowed 46 hits in that span of starts, and in 41 1/3 innings has a 6.10 ERA.

Busch has a blast at Busch

In 10 previous games at the ballpark that shares his name, Cubs first baseman Busch had hit .195 with an on-base percentage to match and a pair of extra base hits. He doubled that output in the first two innings Saturday night.

He doubled that and had three at-bats to do so before the Cardinals had batted through their lineup for the first time.

Busch opened the game with a double. He scored on Kyle Tucker’s single, and four batters into the game, the Cardinals trailed, 2-0. In the second inning, Busch powered the Cubs to a 5-0 lead with a three-run homer. It was his second career homer at Busch Stadium, and it doubled his total for career RBIs in downtown ¹û½´ÊÓƵ.

It also was his sixth home run of the season off the Cardinals.

Pallante invited Busch to blow apart this start with a walk to No. 9 hitter Matt Shaw. An infield single started the inning, and Dansby Swanson turned that into a mess with a steal of a second and then an error from catcher Yohel Pozo attempting to stop him. Shaw’s walk put runners at the corners and brought Busch back around for his second at-bat in as many innings. He crushed Pallante’s pitch into the right-field seats for three RBIs.

When that pitch landed, Busch upped his average at Busch to .233 with a .419 slugging percentage and six RBIs in his 11 games.

Cardinals avoid shutout

It took their second hit of the game to lead to their first run of the game.

Cubs starter Rea allowed a single in the second inning, and the potential rally fizzled from there. He carried that one-hitter through a pair of strikeouts in a perfect fourth inning and then pitched around a leadoff walk in the fifth inning. Through five, Nolan Gorman reached base twice against Rea and the rest of the Cardinals were 0 for 12 when Gorman strolled to first with that walk.

The dent came in the sixth.

Thrust into the leadoff role when Brendan Donovan was scratched due to a sore left groin, Lars Nootbaar opened the sixth with a double off the right-field wall. He tagged up to take third on Ivan Herrera’s fly out to second, and the Cardinals, down 9-0 at the time, were manufacturing a run. Nootbaar scored on a groundout to keep the Cardinals from a shutout.

Before Nootbaar, the Cardinals did not get a runner past second vs. Rea.