ST. LOUIS — It sounded like the chants of “overrated, overrated, overrated” were growing from the crowd of shirtless boosters in right field Busch Stadium when Chicago Cubs leadoff hitter Pete Crow-Armstrong pierced them with a souvenir.

Faster than his 444-foot home run reached the “Tarps Off” section, Crow-Armstrong is emerging as a classic heel in one of baseball’s oldest rivalries. The Cubs’ center fielder already had two hits, two unsavory celebrations on base and parts in two rallies when he drilled a pitch in the eighth inning.

As he rounded first, he gestured to the “Tarps Off” crowd.

And then mimicked – or mocked? – their shirt-twirling celebration.

For the rivalry: Game on.

For the evening: Game over.

Crow-Armstrong’s three hits and two runs catapulted the Cubs toward a 6-1 victory Saturday night in front of a tickets-sold crowd of 40,147. His double in the fifth rallied the Cubs back from a slim, 1-0, deficit. His single in the ninth with the bases loaded punctuated his evening with a fourth hit and second RBI. A loud, blue-clothed portion of the remaining crowd offered counterprogramming chants: “PCA! PCA! PCA!”

The final out of the game was a sliding catch in left-center field that, fittingly for the game, a dashing Crow-Armstrong slid to catch.

He was all over the game, the box score, and, regardless of what side of the rivalry they were on, the fans responded to him.

The Cubs scored three runs in the final two innings to warp what had been a tight ballgame. Not that Cubs starter Ben Brown needed much run support. Almost a year after allowing eight runs and four homers to the Cardinals in his previous start against them, Brown pitched a season-best seven innings and struck out six.

The right-hander held the Cardinals to three hits, and there were innings when he was ruthless. Showing off how he’s expanded his repertoire from a year ago, Brown retired the first three batters of the evening on seven pitches. He didn’t throw a changeup until the third inning, and then in the seventh he retired the Cardinals in order, again, on seven pitches. Nolan Gorman struck out to end Brown’s even – and it was on a changeup.

The “struggles of last year,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said before the game about his fill-in starter, “are all pieces that get you to the present.”

Cardinals starter Kyle Leahy begins his move into the rotation with as many as seven pitches, but it’s the same goal for him – putting all those pieces together into the present. The Cardinals’ right-hander recently called the challenge he’s had facing a lineup for the third time “the same story.” And it was Saturday. Leahy took a 1-0 lead into the fifth inning with the top of the Cubs’ lineup coming around for a third look at him.

Crow-Armstrong led off with a double to right field, and two batters later the game was tied and Leahy had yielded the mound to a reliever. Leahy allowed one run on 4 1/3 innings and struck out four.

The deciding runs came an inning later.

Neither was earned.

They were, however, deserved.

The series will be decided Sunday night at Busch Stadium, weather permitting.

Cubs cash in on gift Cards

There was a stretch from the fifth through the six innings that the Cardinals turned to three different relievers to get five outs.

The first reliever into the fray, Ryan Fernandez, took over for starter Leahy in the fifth inning and was able to navigate his way out of it without allowing an inherited runner to score. He struck out noted headache Ian Happ for the pivotal out that got the Cardinals out of the fifth with a tie game despite three baserunners in the inning.

That score would not outlast the sixth.

Gifts untied the knot.

Fernandez committed an error on a throw to first for the first baserunner of the inning, and the walked No. 9 hitter Dansby Swanson to prime the bases for leadoff hitter Crow-Armstrong. One of the newest target of boos in this rivalry for the Busch faithful, Crow-Armstrong had already singled and doubled off Leahy earlier in the game. He celebrated both with the same suggestive gesture at the base.

The Cardinals turned to lefty Justin Bruihl to face the left-handed-hitting Crow-Armstrong.

Bruihl assured that Crow-Armstrong would not get a hit.

He did, however, get hit.

An inside pitch grazed Crow-Armstrong and that loaded the bases.

Three consecutive Cubs had been put on base by Cardinals relievers, and it did not take long for the visitors to cash in for the lead. Nico Hoerner, the right-handed bat Bruihl had to face, roped a single to center that scored batter who reached via error, and Busch followed with a sacrifice fly that increased the lead to two runs.

In 14 games at the ballpark that he shares a name with, the Cubs’ first baseman had his ninth and 10th RBIs. This ninth RBI at Busch came on a single in the fifth to tie the game.

The Cub he drove home? Crow-Armstrong.

From the fifth through the sixth, those two Cubs combined for two hits, three times on base, a run, and two RBIs. That flipped the game in the Cubs’ favor before Crow-Armstrong’s home run in the eight seemed to ice it.

Is this the same Ben Brown?

When the Cardinals last saw Brown it was a warm day at Wrigley Field and they scorched his ERA with four home runs. Four different left-handed-hitting Cardinals crushed homers off the right-hander as he allowed eight runs on nine hits through five rough innings.

One of those Cardinals hit the homers has been traded (Brendan Donovan), and another is less than a week away from returning to the Cardinals after recovering from offseason surgery (Lars Nootbaar). Two others, Alec Burleson and Gorman, were in the lineup Saturday.

They can offer firsthand confirmation.

That was a different Brown the saw Saturday.

Brown retired the first nine Cardinals he faced on 27 pitches.

Got a flyout from Burleson and he struck out Gorman and otherwise whipped through the Cardinals’ lineup the first time he got to know them his new look. It took Brown, now armed with a sinker, seven pitches to retire the top of the Cardinals’ lineup in order in June.

“Adding some pitches has really freed him up on the mound – to a hitter, to a different swing path,” Counsell said. “It’s a bad feeling out there (when) the hitter knows what I’m going to do. Two choices.”

The Cardinals didn’t even see Brown’s fourth pitch – a changeup – until the fourth.

That was the same inning of the Cardinals’ first hit.

Cardinals connect for brief lead

Rookie JJ Wetherholt, in his second career game of the oldest rivalry in baseball between two teams that never moved, singled on Brown’s 33rd pitch of the game.

It was a curveball that the leadoff hitter tagged.

Wetherholt’s base hit put the game’s first lead in motion.

An odd carom off Ivan Herrera’s bat on a checked swing turned into a groundout, but Wetherholt read the moment and got a jump from first to reach second. That put him in scoring position for one of those left-handed batters who had past success against Brown. Burleson pulled a single to right field that scored Wetherholt from second for a 1-0 lead. When Burleson tried to advance on the throw home, he was out at second and that proved a speedbump in the inning.

The bigger pothole to any rally was how Brown was able to quiet the back half of the Cardinals lineup. Until Victor Scott II walked with one out in the sixth inning, the bottom six spots in the Cardinals’ lineup had failed to get on base. They were combined 0 for 11 against the right-hander, and Brown had four strikeouts in those 11 unsuccessful at-bats.

One of those strikeouts ended the fourth to freeze Jordan Walker at the plate and the Cardinals lead, 1-0, on the scoreboard.

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