Matt Holliday homered and drove in three runs and Matt Pagnozzi sparked two late-inning rallies as the St. Louis Cardinals kept their slim playoff hopes alive with a 6-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday night.

The win keeps the Cardinals alive in the National league Central for at least one more game, but the Cincinnati Reds need just one more win or a St. Louis loss to clinch the title.

Holliday’s two-run homer off Pittsburgh starter Charlie Morton in the sixth tied the contest at 4-4.

St. Louis added the go-ahead run in the seventh when Pagnozzi singled off Sean Gallagher (2-1), advanced to second on a sacrifice and scored on Pittsburgh shortstop Ronny Cedeno’s two-base throwing error. Pagnozzi singled Brendan Ryan to third in the eighth, and Ryan scored on a wild pitch for a 6-4 lead.

Dennys Reyes (2-1) pitched a scoreless seventh for the win, Jason Motte logged the eighth and Kyle McClellan closed out the Bucs in the ninth for his second save.

Pedro Alvarez hit his 14th homer in the second inning off St. Louis starter Kyle Lohse, but the Cardinals responded with two in the third inning on run-scoring singles by Albert Pujols and Holliday to take a 2-1 lead.

The Pirates tied it in the fourth on a two-out, run-scoring single by Cedeno and took a 4-2 edge in the fifth on another pair of two-out singles by Neil Walker and Alvarez.

Alvarez had three hits for the second straight game to extend his hitting streak to seven games.

Both Morton and Lohse departed after six innings, each allowing four runs and 10 hits.