PITTSBURGH — For a night, Francisco Liriano’s typical approach of erratic effectiveness was replaced by something more resembling pinpoint control.

The Pittsburgh Pirates starter struck out a season-high 10 against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday, walking just one. The problem that comes with working around the strike zone more often surfaced on the handful of pitches that Liriano didn’t put where he wanted.

The Cardinals found them. And they crushed them.

Jhonny Peralta hit a solo homer off Liriano and Matt Holliday added a three-run shot off the Pirates’ ace as the Cardinals raced to an 8-5 victory.

“Cannot make that many mistakes at this level,” Liriano said. “Just hang a couple of pitches over the plate and they got a pretty good swing on it.”

Liriano (1-2) saw his ERA rise from 1.93 to 2.79 after giving up six runs, five earned in 6 1-3 innings. Five of the six hits he gave up went for extra bases as the Pirates lost for the sixth time in seven games.

“Tough lineup,” Liriano said. “You cannot make mistakes to those guys. They’re ready to swing.”

Kolten Wong added three hits for the Cardinals, including a three-run shot off reliever Arquimedes Caminero in the seventh to break it open as St. Louis improved to a major-league best 22-7 and nine games clear of Pittsburgh.

“You’ve got to keep playing,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “The season is not going to stop. We did some good things tonight offensively, found some traction there and found some momentum there.”

Starling Marte had three of Pittsburgh’s 12 hits. Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker and Francisco Cervelli had two each.