Cards' Arburr hits three homers

Matt Arburr went into Sunday's game with a clear head and an improved approach at the plate. The results were obvious.

Arburr hit three homers and drove in a career-high six runs to power the Palm Beach Cardinals to a 13-3 rout of the St. Lucie Mets at Tradition Field.

The 22-year-old first baseman slugged a two-run shot in the first inning to give the Cards (24-24) an early lead, then blasted a solo homer his next time up in the third to make it 4-1. After walking and scoring in the seventh, he capped his career afternoon by connecting on a three-run blast, his ninth in 35 Florida State League games.

"I wasn't really thinking much up there today," Arburr said. "I just saw the ball in the pitcher's hands and swung. I got some pitches middle away and saw them real well."

The Connecticut native started the season with Class A Quad Cities of the Midwest League and batted .245 with 13 homers and 33 RBIs in 59 games. He was hitting just .195 with Palm Beach and was mired in a 1-for-16 slump before becoming the third Minor Leaguer in as many days to hit at least three homers.

Click for players with 3+ homers in a game >

"I'd been lacking that confidence a little, so today was a good day to get back into it and really push forward the rest of the way," he said. "I had some good at-bats today. I took a walk and wasn't trying to do too much. It's just a matter of hitting line drives and the home runs will come."

Arburr said it took some time to adjust to the quality of pitching at a higher level.

"It was a bit of an adjustment the first week," he said. "The pitchers throw everything for strikes. But that does make it a little easier to hit because you aren't chasing balls out of the zone. I'm starting to understand hitting a little more."

It was the third multi-homer game of the season for Arburr, who had a pair of two-homer efforts for the River Bandits. Selected by St. Louis in the 17th round of the 2007 draft, he debuted with Rookie-level Johnson City and hit .207 with five homers and 20 RBIs in 44 games last year.

Peter Kozma singled, doubled and drove in three runs and Tyler Henley delivered an RBI triple for Palm Beach (24-24), which has won three of its last four.

Mark Diapoules (2-1) yielded three runs -- two earned -- on six hits and four walks while striking out three over 5 2/3 innings to win his second straight start.

St. Lucie starter Nicholas Carr (0-10) gave up six runs on four hits and three walks with two strikeouts over three innings.

Josh Thole went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored and Jason Jacobs also had two hits for the Mets (25-19), who had a three-game winning streak snapped.