Two pitches, two home runs; that's all it took the Diamondbacks Thursday in the ninth inning to give this series a feeling of slight redemption with a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. Paul Goldschmidt and Chris Young each hit consecutive solo home runs off Jason Motte in the ninth to give Arizona their first lead of this road trip before J.J. Putz came in to close the door in the ninth.
If you watched the entire game though, you would have thought the D-backs' bats evaporated with the rain following the game's brief delay. Kyle Lohse (6.2 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 5 K) absolutely stupefied Arizona's offense, making Trevor Cahill's solid start (6.0 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 4 K) almost entirely irrelevant before the ninth inning heroics kicked in.
In the bottom of the fifth, it seemed the Cardinals would get the only run they'd need when Gerardo Parra's throw would go wide of the plate on an Allen Craig RBI single. From there, Mark Rzepcynski and Mitchell Boggs would continue the shutout before handing the ball over to the usually unflappable Motte.
Motte would strikeout Miguel Montero before Goldschmidt worked the count to until he saw a pitch to his liking, crushing the Motte's miscue to dead center field for a tie game. And before the closer could even recuperate, Young smashed the very next pitch he tossed down the left field line, nearly giving the fans in the upper deck a souvenir in the process.
With the win, the D-backs even up their record (59-59), cutting their NL West deficit back to 5.5 games behind the Dodgers. Wade Miley (12-8, 3.02 ERA) now steps up tomorrow as Arizona looks to carry their momentum to Houston to face Dallas Keuchel (1-4, 5.29 ERA).
And that momentum couldn't come at a better time with the D-backs' next ten games being against teams with sub-.500 records (Astros, Marlins, Padres) after facing teams with winning records (Pirates, Nationals, Cardinals) in their previous ten.