ST. LOUIS (AP) — A little lineup tweak is working out quite well for Dansby Swanson and the Atlanta Braves.

Swanson homered twice and Freddie Freeman also connected, helping Mike Foltynewicz and Atlanta beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-2 on Friday night.

The Braves improved to 11-3 since manager Brian Snitker put Swanson in the No. 2 slot ahead of Freeman on May 10.

“I think we help each other a lot,” Swanson said. “I would like to think that I help him, especially if I’m on base, that he would be able to get pitched differently. But having him hit behind me is fun.”

Swanson drove Miles Mikolas’ first pitch of the sixth inning over the wall in left, giving Atlanta a 2-1 lead. Freeman then hit his 13th homer, giving Atlanta its third set of back-to-back homers this season.

“Completely different than last year,” Freeman said about Swanson, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 amateur draft. “He’s staying on pitches a lot longer, seeing balls a lot longer, and putting the barrel on the ball. He’s been huge for us.”

Foltynewicz (1-3) allowed an unearned run in six innings in his first win since Sept. 28. The right-hander struck out seven and walked none.

Mikolas (4-5) matched his career high with nine strikeouts in seven innings. He was charged with three runs and seven hits while exceeding his number of losses from all of last season.

Atlanta grabbed the lead when Brian McCann scored on Ronald Acuña Jr.’s double play in the third. St. Louis tied it in the bottom half.

Kolten Wong reached second on rookie Austin Riley’s error. Harrison Bader then tripled to center off Acuña’s glove, but he was tagged out after being caught in a rundown between third and home when Foltynewicz cut off the throw to the plate.

UP NEXT

Braves RHP Mike Soroka (5-1, 1.01 ERA) faces Cardinals RHP Dakota Hudson (3-3, 4.30 ERA) on Saturday night. Soroka allowed three hits in seven scoreless innings in his only previous outing versus St. Louis on May 15.

Baseball

Denison-Schleswig 9, OA-BCIG 4
East Mills 19, Griswold 9
Fremont-Mills 6, Sidney 4
Harlan 9, Bishop Heelan 6
Kuemper Catholic, Carroll 10, Red Oak 0 (Game 1)
Kuemper Catholic, Carroll 13, Red Oak 1 (Game 2)
MVAOCOU 7, Woodbury Central, Moville 5
Missouri Valley 16, IKM-Manning 2 (5 innings)
Nodaway Valley 15, Creston 3
Sergeant Bluff-Luton 3, St. Albert 2 (8 innings)
Southwest Valley 14, Lenox 3
Treynor 8, AHSTW 0
Tri-Center 11, Riverside 0 (5 innings)
Underwood 5, Audubon 0
Wayne 6, East Union 0
Woodbine 14, Glidden-Ralston 2

Softball

Denison-Schleswig 8, Shenandoah 2 (Game 1)
Denison-Schleswig 3, Shenandoah 2 (Game 2)
Fremont-Mills 11, Sidney 6
Griswold 8, East Mills 5
Kuemper Catholic 5, Carroll 3
Lenox 3, Southwest Valley 2
Missouri Valley 9, IKM-Manning 3
Riverside 11, Tri-Center 1
Sioux City North 19, Lewis Central 2
Sioux City East 10, Lewis Central 0 (5 innings)
Treynor 10, AHSTW 2
Twin Cedars 8, Orient-Macksburg 0
Underwood 5, Audubon 0
Wayne 10, East Union 0
West Monona 9, Ridge View 0
Westwood 16, River Valley 3
Woodbury Central 12, MVAOCOU 6

The Boys State Tourney started on Friday for both Classes 1A and 2A. Action began indoors due to wet weather then moved back outside once weather was favorable. Class 1A action was being contested at Byrnes Park Tennis Courts in Waterloo and Atlantic had two players in singles action. Denison-Schleswig and Clarinda had doubles teams in competition.

Atlantic’s Nile Petersen lost his opening match to Jack Edwards of Pella 6-0, 6-4. He then went into the consolation bracket and defeated Jeff Miller of St. Albert 6-1, 6-4. Then in the Consolation Quarterfinals Petersen lost to Reed Miller of St. Albert 6-0, 6-1. That ends Petersen’s play at State. Miller lost to Evan Moon of North Polk in the Quarterfinals 6-3,6-4 to fall to the Consolation bracket. Miller will face Jordan Roozeboom of Pella in the Consolation Semifinals on Saturday and then in the 5th or 7th place match.

Grant Sturm of Atlantic also saw his tournament end on day one. Sturm fell to Reed Miller of St. Albert 6-1, 6-0 in his opening match. Then Sturm went to the Consolation bracket and lost to Sam Avery of Ft. Madison 6-3, 6-3.

Jeff Miller of St. Albert lost his opening match to Zach Wingert of LeMars 7-6(4), 6-4 before falling to Petersen in the Consolation bracket.

In Class 1A Doubles play Brady Williams and Alex Best of Clarinda won their opening round match over Mac Adams and Aaron Blum of Clear Lake 1-6, 7-6(3), 7-5. They then fell to Wes Johnson and Matthew Schmidt of Cedar Rapids Xavier 6-0, 6-2. They then went to the Consolation bracket and lost to Chase Winterboer and Colton Stout of Ballard 6-3, 7-5. That knocks the duo out of play.

Also in doubles action Sean Moran and Collin Reis of Denison-Schleswig won their opening match over Caleb Hammerlinck and Max Olsan of Ballard 6-2, 7-5. They then fell to Lewis Jolly and AJ Wilkins of Grinnell 6-4, 6-4. In the Consolation Quarterfinals the Denison duo defeated Jason and Vasn Thurman of Fort Madison 7-6 (2), 1-6, 1-0(4) to make it to day two in the Consolation Semifinals. They will play Chase Winterboer and Colton Stout of Ballard at 9:30am Saturday and then in either the 5th or 7th place match.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Eli Wilson had two hits and drove in two runs, helping Minnesota eliminate Iowa in the Big Ten tournament with a 3-0 victory on Friday night.

Wilson had an RBI single in the third inning and an RBI double in the ninth inning for the fourth-seeded Gophers (28-26), who advanced to meet seventh-seeded Ohio State in the semifinals on Saturday. If they win the first matchup with the Buckeyes, they must beat them again to make it to the championship game on Sunday.

Gophers starter Joshua Culliver scattered four hits without a walk over 4 1/3 innings, and Ryan Duffy added 3 2/3 scoreless innings of relief.

Jordan Kozicky added an RBI single in the ninth and Brett Schulze got the save, striking out Chris Whelan looking to end the game with runners at second and third at 12:49 local time to cap a long day at TD Ameritrade Park. Iowa lost 11-1 to Nebraska in the afternoon, a game postponed by a rainstorm the night before.

Ben Norman went 3 for 4 for the eighth-seeded Hawkeyes (31-24).