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Phillies beat Cardinals for sixth straight win

Sep 19, 2007 - 7:02 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- The Philadelphia Phillies just keep finding ways to win games when it counts.

Rod Barajas singled home the winning run in the top of the 14th inning and the Phillies matched a season high with their sixth straight win, 7-4, over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday.

With the victory, the Phillies (82-69) moved to within just 1 1/2 games of the New York Mets (83-67) - who had lost their fifth straight game earlier on Tuesday - in the National League East. The Phillies have not been this close to the division lead since losing their opening game of the season on April 2. Philadelphia also remained just 1 1/2 games behind the San Diego Padres (83-67) in the wild card standings.

"It feels great," Barajas said. "At this point in the season every game is just magnified. To be able to come through and help the team get a win in such a crucial situation, it just felt wonderful."

In a game where neither starting pitcher went past the third inning, Barajas lined a two-out base hit up the middle off Mike Maroth (0-5) to score Chase Utley, who had led off the 14th with a single. It was the first RBI since June 20 for the Phillies backup catcher. Jayson Werth followed with a two-run triple off of Kelvin Jimenez - the 11th Cardinals pitcher of the night - to give the Phillies some breathing room.

"I was just looking away and trying to find something that was up enough for me to be able to get a good swing on it," Barajas said.

St. Louis set a National League record by using 11 pitchers and tied a NL record with 28 total players in the game. The teams combined to play 53 players, which also tied a NL record.

"It was a battle out there," Phillies centerfielder Aaron Rowand said. "Both ways, neither team wanted to give in and the pitching did a real good job tonight on both sides."

Jose Mesa (2-3) pitched two scoreless innings for the win and Clay Condrey pitched a perfect 14th for his first career save.

The Phillies had momentarily taken the lead in the top of the 10th when Greg Dobbs reached on a bases-loaded fielder's choice. Second baseman Aaron Miles' throw to the plate skipped away from Kelly Stinnett to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead. Brett Myers however, could not nail down the victory as he gave up Scott Spiezio's sacrifice fly in the bottom half of the inning.

"There was a fast runner (at third) and I was trying to get rid of it quick," Miles said. "It just short hopped a little bit. It's good we were able to get one run (in the bottom half) and prolong the game."

Phillies starter Cole Hamels, who had been on the disabled list since August 16 with a left elbow strain, was on a low pitch count and threw only 54 pitches, giving up three runs and five hits in just three innings.

"(Hamels) was rusty," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "The outing was good for him as far as getting to throw in a game situation but he was definitely rusty and that's to be expected."

The Cardinals have now lost 12 of their last 13 games and have dropped 16 of their last 20 games at home against Philadelphia.

"It was just a really tough game," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said. "It wears you out when you get beat, (the Phillies) have a lot of adrenaline and we don't right now."

The Phillies got on the board early when Dobbs walked with the bases loaded to force in Utley, who had doubled.

St. Louis answered in the bottom of the second on a pair of RBI groundouts by Yadier Molina and Skip Schumaker to take a 2-1 lead, and went up 3-1 when Miguel Cairo lined an RBI single to left field to score So Taguchi in the bottom of the third inning.

Werth hit an RBI triple in the top of the sixth inning and scored on a Carlos Ruiz sacrifice fly to tie the score at 3-3.