Lars Nootbaar delivered an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth to lift the St. Louis Cardinals to a 4-3 win against the visiting Chicago Cubs in the opener of their doubleheader on Thursday afternoon.

Erich Uelmen (0-1) issued back-to-back walks to Nolan Arenado and Paul DeJong with one out in the ninth before Nootbaar came through.

Nolan Gorman and Paul Goldschmidt hit back-to-back home runs and Brendan Donovan had two hits for the Cardinals, who have won five of six entering Thursday's nightcap.

Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas allowed three runs and eight hits in 6 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked one.

Ryan Helsley (6-1) pitched the ninth to earn the win for St. Louis.

Cubs starter Marcus Stroman was trying to win back-to-back starts for the first time since June of last season. He came up short, allowing three runs and five hits in 6 2/3 innings while striking out six with no walks.

Willson Contreras hit a solo home run, Rafael Ortega had three hits and Nico Hoerner had two for the Cubs, who have lost four in a row.

Contreras hit a solo homer with one out in the first, his 15th of the season, to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead.

Contreras doubled to lead off the sixth. With one out Seiya Suzuki delivered an RBI single to center for a 2-0 lead. After getting the second out of the inning, Mikolas surrendered another RBI single to Patrick Wisdom to make it 3-0.

The Cardinals scored three runs in the seventh to tie the score.

Gorman went deep to lead off the inning and make it 3-1.

Goldschmidt, who came in 5-for-10 in his career against Stroman with a double and two HRs, followed with another home run on the 10th pitch of his at-bat to cut the lead to 3-2.

Arenado then doubled, moved to third on DeJong's fly out and scored on another fly out by Nootbaar to tie the score 3-3.