Albert Pujols hit his 40th and 41st homers of the season and Dan Descalso added three hits and two RBIs as the St. Louis Cardinals avoided a sweep with a 9-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday.

Matt Holliday added an RBI and scored two runs and Nick Stavinoha doubled in a run for the Cardinals, who snapped a three-game slide and improved to just 5-20 against sub-.500 teams since August 11.

After failing to generate much offense against Paul Maholm and Charlie Morton in the first two games of the series, Pujols sparked a four-run rally against Brian Burres (3-4) with his 40th blast of the season in the third - a two-run shot. Stavinoha added his RBI double and Descalso doubled in a run later in the frame.

St. Louis kept the pressure on Burres in the fourth, adding two more runs on Holliday’s RBI single and stealing one when Pujols scored on a wild pitch.

The Cardinals added another run in the fifth and two more in the sixth, including Pujols’ solo blast.

Jeff Suppan (2-7) kept it together for St. Louis on the mound, allowing one run on four hits while walking two and striking out two in five innings.