Lanschaften » Gonzalez is 10-3 with a 1.85 ERA

The St. Louis Cardinals left Arizona feeling a little bit better about themselves Darnell Savage Jr. Jersey , thanks to a late-inning surge by the offense and another strong outing from Miles Mikolas.

The Cardinals scored seven times in the seventh and eighth innings to beat Arizona 8-4 on Wednesday night. After coming to town on a four-game losing streak and off a three-game sweep at the hands of Atlanta, St. Louis took two of three from the first-place Diamondbacks.

Yadier Molina’s three-run homer on the first pitch from reliever Fernando Salas highlighted a five-run Cardinals seventh inning after Arizona had nursed a 2-1 lead through six in front of a sellout crowd of 44,072.

”Had some big hits today,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. ”It allows those big five-run innings to happen. Wear the pitcher down, wear the defense down. Then you have Yadi come in and do something special on the back end.”

Tommy Pham drove in three Cardinals runs with a double and two singles. Matt Carpenter doubled twice and singled with one RBI.

”Carp kind of set the tone. He got on base a lot,” Pham said. ”I think we had good at-bats. Even when the results weren’t there, we made guys throw pitches. That’s key. If a guy is taking four or five plus pitches to get outs, that means you are grinding as a hitter. When you put that together as a team, it wears out pitching staffs.”

The Diamondbacks dropped to 1-5 on their homestand and lead the surging Los Angeles Dodgers by just a half-game in the NL West.

Mikolas (9-3) gave up two runs and seven hits, walked four and struck out three.

Arizona reliever Yoshihisa Hirano (2-1) had his franchise-record streak of 26 games without allowing a run end when Yairo Munoz homered to lead off the seventh. Hirano gave up four runs, one earned, on three hits in two-thirds of an inning for his first loss since coming to the major leagues from Japan this season.

”Yoshi’s human,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. ”That’s what it means, right? And he’s absolutely spoiled us. He’s been a slam-dunk reliever and he made a really tough game look easy for a long time.”

After Munoz’s homer, shortstop Ketel Marte booted pinch-hitter Tyler O’Neill’s grounder for an error. With one out and O’Neill on second Elgton Jenkins Jersey , Pham singled to center to put the Cardinals up 3-2. Center fielder Jarrod Dyson left the game with discomfort in his right groin area, Lovullo said.

Salas relieved Hirano and gave up the big hit to Molina, who homered twice in the series.

”It was like two totally different games,” Lovullo said. ”The first six innings were exactly the way you’d like to see guys go out and execute and do their job, and then the final three innings unfortunately we couldn’t execute in a lot of key areas.”

HARD-LUCK LEFTY

Arizona starter Patrick Corbin allowed one run and six hits in six innings, his third straight strong outing without a decision. He’s given up two runs in 19 innings during those three starts.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: Paul DeJong (broken left hand) homered and doubled and played shortstop all nine innings Tuesday night in his fourth rehab game for Triple-A Memphis. Matheny said DeJong would not be activated Thursday in San Francisco but could be at some time during the four-game series.

Diamondbacks: Right-handed reliever Randall Delgado (left oblique strain) was scheduled to make another rehab appearance for Triple-A Reno and is expected to be activated Thursday, the end of his rehab assignment. … OF Steven Souza Jr. (strained right pectoral) had Wednesday off in his rehab assignment with Reno after homering twice for the Aces on Tuesday night. Souza has three homers in his last two rehab games.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: Head to San Francisco for four games against the Giants. RHP Luke Weaver (4-7, 5.16 ERA) starts for St. Louis in Thursday night’s opener. Johnny Cueto (3-0, 0.84) comes off the disabled list to pitch for the Giants.

Diamondbacks: RHP Shelby Miller (0-2, 11.42), following two rough starts in his return from Tommy John surgery, takes the mound Thursday night in the opener of a four-game home series against San Diego. LHP Eric Lauer (3-5, 5.08) goes for the Padres.

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WASHINGTON — The Washington Nationals will try to build off an historic win when they host the Miami Marlins on Friday night.

Washington fell behind Miami 9-0 in the top of the fourth inning Thursday night but rallied for an improbable 14-12 victory, snapping a five-game losing streak one night after a players-only meeting.

The win marked the largest comeback in Nationals’ history (2005-present) and tied the Montreal/Washington franchise mark.

“This is what this team’s capable of,” Matt Adams Jace Sternberger Jersey , who went 4-for-5 in his return from a fractured index finger, told MASN.com. “Tonight, we never gave up. We got down big, and we just started chipping away. Put together some good ABs, pitchers started getting outs, and things just kind of fell in sync for us.”

Shortstop Trea Turner hit a grand slam, a solo homer, and finished with eight RBIs while raising his average to .280. He tied the MLB record for RBIs as a a leadoff hitter as the Nationals improved to 43-43 with their 12th straight defeat of the Marlins.

“Trea had an unbelievable day, so good for him,” manager Davey Martinez told MASN.com. “I’ve said this before, but for me, he’s an All-Star.”

The Marlins (36-53) got home runs from Brian Anderson, Justin Bour and Martin Prado, who was activated from the disabled list earlier in the day, as they matched a record of their own — the largest blown lead in team history — after jumping on Nationals starter Jeremy Hellickson.

“We didn’t help ourselves Dexter Williams Jersey ,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly told the Miami Herald. “We played good defense. We didn’t make an error all night, but you can’t walk eight guys with that club over there. We let them back in the game and we couldn’t stop the momentum.”

Anderson’s three-run homer pulled Miami within 14-12 in the eighth inning.

Rookie Pablo Lopez got a no-decision despite receiving nine runs of run support in his second career start. He tossed five innings and allowed five earned runs on five hits while striking out three and walking two.

“I didn’t have my best secondary stuff and they just started putting good swings on my fastball,” Lopez told the Herald. “Hitters make adjustments and I have to make mine trying to spin my breaking ball better and locate my changeup.”

Left-hander Gio Gonzalez (6-5, 3.77) tries to turn Thursday’s win into a mini streak for Washington on Friday night. The Nationals have lost his last four starts with Gonzalez allowing 16 runs in 16 innings, though one start was shortened by a rain delay. He is winless in his last six outings.

In his last start, Gonzalez cruised through four innings of a no-decision against the Phillies before coming apart in the fifth, allowing three runs to tie the game in a 40-pitch fifth inning that included three walks.

“He fell behind that inning, and that’s what happens,” Martinez told the Washington Post. “When he falls behind and walks guys, bad things happen.”

Gonzalez is 10-3 with a 1.85 ERA in 16 starts versus Miami.

Marlins right-hander Dan Straily (3-4, 4.70) has allowed three or more earned runs in each of his last five starts. In a loss to the Mets on Sunday, he gave up three runs on five hits over seven innings.

Straily is 0-1 with a 4.03 ERA in five starts against the Nationals.