Jason Marquis has come back to haunt his former team.Matt Murton hit a three-run homer, and Marquis allowed just one run while pitching into the seventh inning to lead the Chicago Cubs to a 4-2 win over the slumping St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.

Marquis says he gets no special thrill out of beating St. Louis, where he won 14 games last season. But he was happy to drop the defending World Series champion Cardinals another game off the pace in the NL Central.

“Obviously it’s big because it slowly takes them out of the equation,” Marquis said of the Cardinals, who have lost 10 of 11 and fell seven games out of first. “But a win is a win.”

Geovany Soto had a career-high four hits for the Cubs, who took three of four games in the series and maintained their one-game lead over Milwaukee in the NL Central.