NATIONAL LEAGUE

Braves 2, Brewers 1

Jair Jurrjens gave up only one run, rookie Jason Heyward made two strong defensive plays in his return from an injury and Atlanta beat Milwaukee Thursday night.

Martin Prado and Chipper Jones hit home runs in the third inning off Dave Bush (4-7).

Corey Hart's 22nd homer gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead in the first inning. It was the only run allowed by Jurrjens, who gave up five hits and two walks with three strikeouts in 6 2-3 innings.

Jurrjens (2-3) earned his second win in three starts since returning from a hamstring injury.

Billy Wagner pitched a perfect ninth for his 21st save.

The first-place Braves began the night four games ahead of the Mets in the NL East.

Jurrjens' two walks came in the seventh before right-hander Peter Moylan ended the inning by getting Rickie Weeks to groundout.

Heyward was voted to start in Tuesday's All-Star game but could only watch as he remained disabled with a left thumb injury. He came off the 15-day disabled list against the Brewers and delivered two great defensive plays. Milwaukee's Casey McGehee was the victim on each play.

McGehee led off the second with a single. Jim Edmonds followed with a single to right, and Heyward threw out McGehee at third base. Heyward's strong throw to Jones beat McGehee by such a wide margin that McGehee made no apparent attempt to touch the bag on his wide slide.

In the fourth, Heyward avoided injury when he smashed into the right-field wall after making a running catch to rob McGehee of a hit. The impact near the foul line knocked Heyward to his back on the warning track, where he remained as Braves manager Bobby Cox and assistant trainer Jim Lovell hurried out of the dugout.

Fans applauded as Heyward remained in the game. He did not have a hit.

Alex Gonzalez, acquired in Wednesday's five-player trade that sent Yunel Escobar to Toronto, had a walk and a double in his debut with the Braves.

Cardinals 7, Dodgers 1

Chris Carpenter allowed four hits in eight innings to improve to 6-0 against Los Angeles, and St. Louis chased an off-kilter Clayton Kershaw in the fifth inning.

Rookie Allen Craig had two RBIs without a hit off Kershaw (9-5), who dug his own hole with consecutive walks on 11 pitches to start the Cardinals' two-run first, meriting a quick visit from pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. Kershaw also got tagged with a liner off his right leg for an infield hit by Aaron Miles in the second and allowed four earned runs in 4 1-3 innings with one strikeout.

Kershaw fanned 12 in his last pre-All-Star break outing a week ago in a victory over the Cubs, but faltered mostly due to a lack of control against a lineup that featured eight right-handed bats.

Andre Ethier homered and singled for the Dodgers, who committed errors on consecutive plays in St. Louis' two-run fourth.

Cubs 12, Phillies 6

Aramis Ramirez hit a pair of two-run doubles, and Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto each had two-run homers to lead Chicago to a win over Philadelphia.

Alfonso Soriano also hit a solo homer for the Cubs, who scored nine of their 12 runs with two outs. Starlin Castro also stole home on a botched suicide squeeze in the second inning.

Cubs starter Ryan Dempster allowed two runs on six hits with three walks and nine strikeouts. Dempster (8-7) rebounded after allowing a long two-run homer to Ryan Howard - his first of two in the game - in the first inning.

The Cubs tagged Phillies starter Jamie Moyer (9-9) for six runs on five hits in three innings. He allowed two home runs and hit two batters. In his last two starts, he has allowed 13 runs in 8 1-3 innings.

After a four-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds before the All-Star break, the Phillies failed to match a season-high five-game winning streak and fell 5 1-2 games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East.

The Phillies' bats didn't come awake again until the ninth inning. Shane Victorino and Raul Ibanez had a pair of two-out RBI singles in the ninth off Cubs reliever Bob Howry. Howard then chased Howry with another long two-run homer to right field.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

White Sox 8, Twins 7

Gordon Beckham had a home run and two RBIs and John Danks recovered from his worst inning of the season to help the White Sox win their ninth game in a row.

Danks (9-7) gave up six runs on six hits in the second inning, but only allowed three hits in his other five scoreless innings and the White Sox did all the little things right to push the slumping Twins 4 1-2 games behind them in the AL Central.

Bobby Jenks picked up his 20th save in 21 chances. He struck out Orlando Hudson with the bases loaded in the eighth inning, then gave up an RBI-single to Delmon Young in the ninth before getting Jim Thome looking to end the game.

NOTES

DL likely for Morneau

Hoping to use the All-Star break as a slump-busting springboard, the Minnesota Twins must start the second half without Justin Morneau.

The big-swinging first baseman was out of the lineup again, still recovering from the effects of a concussion. He said before Thursday night's game against the first-place Chicago White Sox that he will probably land on the disabled list.

"It's a lot better than it was, especially the last few days," Morneau said inside the clubhouse. "Woke up this morning feeling pretty good. We did 25 minutes on the elliptical and felt pretty good. But as the day has gone on, the plan was to try and come in and hit today. We decided not to do that with what we did this morning. Just not feeling that great."

Manager Ron Gardenhire said the team would wait to make a decision until before today's game. Utility infielder Matt Tolbert is ready to come off the disabled list and could swap roster spots with the 2006 AL MVP.