Garcia dominates Brewers in Cardinals' Friday win

ST. LOUIS -- Jaime Garcia had so much movement on his fastball that teammate Ryan Theriot said he could have beaten any team with just that pitch.

Garcia carried a perfect game into the eighth inning and finished with a two-hitter, dominating the punchless Milwaukee Brewers with his other pitches, too, in a 6-0 victory for the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night.

"This is definitely one of the greatest days of my short career," Garcia said. "It was real exciting out there."

Garcia (4-0) issued a four-pitch walk to Casey McGehee with one out in the eighth. Yuniesky Betancourt grounded a solid single to left to end the no-hit bid on the next pitch.

"I noticed the sixth or seventh inning nobody was talking to me, but I knew the whole time," Garcia said. "I knew I had a perfect game and it so hard not to think about it."

Theriot, the Cardinals' shortstop, thought about it, too. Theriot worried about having reduced mobility after getting hit by a pitch on his left shin in the first inning and left for a pinch hitter in the fourth.

"In a game like that, you don't want to be down a step," Theriot said. "Jaime's throwing so great."

Garcia threw a four-hit shutout to beat the Padres in his first start but hadn't gone longer than six innings in any of his next five outings. Major League Baseball detained Garcia for several minutes for an undisclosed reason after his third career shutout.

The 24-year-old Garcia won 13 games last year and was third in the NL rookie of the year voting. The left-hander set the tone when he retired the side in order on only nine pitches in the first and needed only 77 pitches to get the first 22 outs before the perfect game and no-hitter went out the window on consecutive pitches.

"We all had our own thoughts," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "We were pulling so hard for him."