ST. LOUIS — Albert Pujols has a nice head start in his quest for a second straight MVP season. He gave the St. Louis Cardinals a nice head start on another victory.

Pujols hit his major league-leading 12th home run in the first inning and Chris Carpenter beat the Pittsburgh Pirates for the sixth straight time in St. Louis' 7-2 victory Monday night. Pujols has three first-inning homers, two in the last four days.

"It's always big to take the lead," Pujols said. "You send a message right away that we're ready to play."

Pujols added a run-scoring double for his 28th RBI, also tops in the majors, to help send the Pirates to their fifth straight loss. So Taguchi had three hits and two RBI and Hector Luna had a pair of RBI singles for the Cardinals, who have won four of five.

Jason Bay hit his fifth homer for the Pirates, who have lost 10 of their last 11 on the road and sit at the bottom of the NL with a 5-16 record.

"It's been going like that for a while, pretty much since Day 1," Jeromy Burnitz said.

Pujols' shot off Oliver Perez (1-3) left him one homer shy of the major league record for April shared by Ken Griffey Jr. (1997) and Luis Gonzalez (2001) with six games left.

Carpenter (3-1) prevailed without his best stuff, working around eight hits, a walk and a hit batter in six innings, with three strikeouts. His run of 15 consecutive scoreless innings ended on Bay's homer leading off the fourth and the Pirates strung together four straight two-out hits later in the inning, including an RBI single by Humberto Cota.

"I was up in the strike zone more than I've been," Carpenter said. "When you're up in the strike zone, they're going to put good swings on the ball."

Carpenter held the Pirates to two hits in eight scoreless innings in his last start and is 7-1 with a 2.66 ERA for his career against them. Bay's homer was only the third he's allowed against Pittsburgh in 64 1-3 innings.

The Pirates suspect they're not alone considering Carpenter was 21-5 last year and won the NL Cy Young Award.

"He executed about three or four different pitches and throws them where he wants to throw them," Burnitz said. "I don't think that's going to be any different against us."