Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs scored twice in the bottom of the ninth inning to force extra innings, and won in the 11th when David DeJesus, with two outs and rookie Brett Jackson on third base, lined a single into right field.

Early on, most of the attention went to the Cardinals' Chris Carpenter, making his first appearance all season after recovering from surgery to remove one of ribs. Carpenter got into some trouble in the third inning. DeJesus led off with a triple, Darwin Barney reached on bloop single and, moments later, Barney scored on Alfonso Soriano's double to make the score 2-2.

Carpenter settled down, and left after five innings in line for a win, as the Cardinals took a 3-2 lead in the fourth when Pete Kozma tripled and stole home on a busted squeeze play. In the eighth, they made it 4-2 on Daniel Descalso's RBI double. So things seemed well in hand in the bottom of the ninth, when Fernando Salas came in for the save. But with two outs and a man on, Darwin Barney thrilled the Wrigley denizens with a home run that just barely snuck into the left-field bleachers.

Which set up the 11th inning, and DeJesus's big hit.

With their loss, the Cardinals' lead in the Wild Card standings fell to just two games over the Brewers, pending Milwaukee's game Friday night against the Nationals.