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Dunn caps Diamondbacks rally in ninth

Sep 4, 2008 - 12:23 AM PHOENIX (Ticker) -- A late ninth-inning surge saved the Arizona Diamondbacks from continuing to fall back into the pack of the National League West Division.

Adam Dunn hit the game-winning RBI double in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Diamondbacks rallied for a 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday.

Arizona (71-68) entered the day with a 1 1/2 game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers (69-70) after leading the division by as many as 4 1/2 last Friday. The teams open a three-game series at Los Angeles this Friday.

"It didn't look good early on. As a matter of fact, I was drawing up a little speech for after the game - they kind of took that from me," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "But I will take that, we haven't done that in a while, especially to come back at home, walk somebody off like that, especially after early on it didn't look like our at-bats were great."

Arizona also pushed its lead to six games over the third-place Colorado Rockies (66-75), who fell to the San Francisco Giants, 9-2, earlier on Wednesday.

The Diamondbacks trailed, 3-2, entering the bottom of the ninth, but Stephen Drew led off the inning with a triple and scored two batters later on Conor Jackson's RBI single to left through the drawn-in infield.

That set the stage for Dunn, who lined a 1-1 offering from Cardinals rookie closer Chris Perez (2-2) down the right-field line. Jackson just beat the relay throw to the plate, giving the Diamondbacks the win.

"It feels good," Dunn said. "We've been having a little trouble scoring some runs and for us to kind of grind back and win that game it's huge."

The blown save was the third of the season for Perez but first since July 12.

"The first hit to Drew, it was a good pitch, low and away, he put a good swing on it and drove it in the gap," Perez said. "Conor Jackson, made a good pitch. It was low, missed my spot, I was trying to go away, but it came back over.

"The last one to Dunn was probably the worst pitch at the time, it was right over the middle."

St. Louis, which has lost five of its last six, opened the scoring when Troy Glaus blasted his second two-run homer in as many games - and the 300th homer of his career - in the third inning to give the Cardinals a 2-0 lead.

Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse pitched six scoreless innings and helped his own cause with an RBI double in the top of the sixth to extend the lead to 3-0.

"It's frustrating, because we need every win we can get, and we are just not coming up with what it takes to get it done," Lohse said. "I could care less if I get the win, but we need wins."

The Diamondbacks cut into the deficit in the seventh when Jackson reached on a fielder's choice with the bases loaded to make the score 3-1.

Ron Villone's wild pitch scored Miguel Montero from third and Dunn followed with a walk to put runners on first and second with two outs. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa brought in rookie Jason Motte to make his major league debut and the 26-year-old struck out Mark Reynolds to end the threat and keep St. Louis ahead by one run.

The late comeback by Arizona denied Lohse from tying his career high for wins in a season with 14.

"He's got a very misleading win total," Cardinals manager La Russa said. "He's definitely pitched well enough to have several more. It's a team game though."