ST. LOUIS — Rarely has there been a no-doubt-about-it home run like the one Matt Holliday hit Friday night at Busch Stadium.

Holliday drilled a split-finger fastball from Ryan Dempster just to the left of Big Mac Land, a drive that was measured at 469 feet, in the St. Louis Cardinals' 4-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs.

The home run was the longest in the history of 7-year-old Busch Stadium III. The previous longest was 465 feet, hit by Albert Pujols on Aug. 14, 2011, against Colorado.

"I've hit balls like that in batting practice before and I hit one in Dodger Stadium similar to that," Holliday said. "But yeah, it's fun to catch one and hit it like that."

Holliday said he didn't see where the ball landed.

"I didn't want to watch it because I have a lot of respect for Ryan Dempster," he said. "I saw it on the video. I knew I got it good. I mean, I didn't know how far it would go, but I knew it was a home run."

Holliday was 2-for-3 with a walk and is batting a team-high .319 with 15 homers and 60 RBIs.

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny marveled at Holliday's blast, which came in support of Kyle Lohse (10-2).

"That ball was killed. That ball was hit extremely well," Matheny said. "It was nice to see. I know it felt good for him. That was the longest one I've seen."

The Cardinals (48-45) scored more than three runs in a game for the first time since July 8. They remained five games behind first-place Cincinnati, which defeated Miami 4-3.

Lohse threw his ninth consecutive quality start, allowing one run on six hits seven innings, with one walk and four strikeouts.

Lohse didn't have his best stuff, but he made pitches when necessary. With the Cardinals leading 3-1 in the third, he pitched out of a first-and-second, no-out jam by striking out Anthony Rizzo and getting Alfonso Soriano on a 1-4-3 double play.

"That was big," Lohse said. "I was facing a really good young hitter and got him looking. Soriano has always had a fair amount of success against me. Getting him to ground back to me was kind of a momentum-changer for me, to be able to get out of that inning.

"I was staring at some trouble. You're trying to figure out a way to minimize it. That's about the best way you can minimize it."

Holliday then connected on his one-out homer in the bottom of the inning. Lohse's eyes lit up when recalling the long home run.

"Impressive," Lohse said. "Unfortunately, I didn't see all of it. I was looking somewhere else, but then I heard everybody screaming. I saw the replay of it. It was a good one. It reminds me of some I've given up this year."

Lohse has allowed 11 homers this season.

Holliday said it's imperative that the Cardinals begin to string together victories --at home and on the road. They're not only chasing Cincinnati, but also second-place Pittsburgh. The Pirates lead St. Louis by 4 1/2 games.

"We've got to win games if we want to play in the postseason," Holliday said. "Two games over .500 isn't going to do it. We've got enough talent in this room that that's not necessarily what our record should be, in my opinion.

"We've got to get going. We've got to start winning game. This is a good start. You can't look back. We've got to win (Saturday) and start winning series --and get back to playing good baseball."

The second game of the series is 6:15 p.m. Saturday. Jake Westbrook (7-8, 3.82 ERA) will pitch for the Cardinals against Matt Garza (5-7, 4.02 ERA).

Contact reporter David Wilhelm at dwilhelm@bnd.com or 239-2665. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidMWilhelm.