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Aurilia delivers another timely hit; Lowry sharp as Giants win

Apr 20, 2007 - 3:53 AM SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- Apparently one big hit wasn't enough for Rich Aurilia.

Aurilia drove in the go-ahead run for the second straight game, a two-run double that snapped a sixth-inning tie, as the San Francisco Giants completed a brief two-game sweep over the St. Louis Cardinals with a sloppy 6-2 victory.

Noah Lowry was exceptional over seven innings for the Giants, who combined with the Cardinals for four errors.

Behind Kip Wells' arm and bat, St. Louis held a 2-0 lead in the fifth. Wells singled and scored in the third and homered in the fifth, but San Francisco scored twice in that inning with the help of two errors and pushed across the deciding runs in the next frame.

"It's not the best way to play so I think its safe to say we're concerned," Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa said. "I don't think its necessary to spell it out."

Dave Roberts reached on an infield hit with one out and stole second. Omar Vizquel drew a five-pitch walk, bringing up Aurilia, who won Wednesday's game with a 12th-inning RBI single.

The righthanded hitter worked the count to 2-1 before ripping a hanging breaking ball inside the third base line for a two-run double and a 4-2 edge.

"I feel like I'm seeing the ball well right now and I feel as if I don't swing at a lot of bad pitches, I'm usually doing all right. I'm just trying to have good at-bats up there," Aurilia said. "Wells was throwing really well, until that one inning and an error started everything.

"We've got to take advantage of opportunities we get and that was a big one and we took advantage of it, so it shows a lot of character on this team that we went out and didn't give up and battled back twice the last two days."

The Giants loaded the bases and Randy Winn delivered a sacrifice fly for a 5-2 edge.

Lowry (1-2) allowed two runs and four hits with two walks and four strikeouts for his first win since August 26 against Cincinnati.

Despite yielding just four earned runs in 13 innings over his first two starts, the lefthander lost both because the Giants scored a total of one run.

"I felt good today and I had great defense behind me and guys got clutch hits when we needed them and I came out on top," Lowry said. "I look at what I can do and try to control what I can control. I've got enough on my plate as it is at this level and I try to focus on one thing and these guys will take care of it like they did today."

"Lowry pitched well, he's been throwing the ball well, he had good command today. He did what you want and that's keep you in the ballgame," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.

Wells (1-3) was charged with five runs - four earned - and six hits in six innings and had two of the Cardinals' five hits.

"Stuff-wise, obviously outing to outing it varies a little bit, but as much as anything I just didn't command with my fastball the way I'm capable of," Wells said. "And when they're in the sixth I just didn't make pitches I need to make when I got into some hot water, and obviously they did a good job of hitting pitches that were hittable pitches.

"If you don't give him anything to work with, you feel like you're under the gun all the time," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "That one inning got away (from us) but we didn't play great defensively and he pitched around most of it."

The Cardinals have lost four straight games.

"I think all of us are looking in the mirror right now and thinking what we can do to get better," Cardinals second baseman Aaron Miles said. "I think we're going to figure it out and these things tend to go in streaks and right now it's a bad one.

St. Louis opened the scoring in the third inning. Wells led off with an infield hit and advanced to second on a throwing error by Lowry. David Eckstein sacrificed and Wells scored on a throwing error by first baseman Ryan Klesko.

Wells hit his fourth career homer leading off the fifth for a 2-0 lead before the Cardinals' defense gave the Giants a pair of runs. Ray Durham reached on an error by first baseman Albert Pujols and Klesko tripled to right-center and scored when Winn reached on a throwing error by Miles.

"I expect it here and its just one of those things where we go out there and play to win and you hit a ball like that it usually goes out but I knew that coming to play here anyways," Klesko said.