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Wainwright, Cardinals edge Diamondbacks

Jul 6, 2007 - 3:53 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- Adam Wainwright kept the St. Louis Cardinals on a roll.

Wainwright pitched seven-plus effective innings and Juan Encarnacion hit a three-run homer to lift the Cardinals to a 3-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the finale of a four-game series Thursday.

Wainwright (7-7) yielded two runs and five hits, striking out five and walking three, as St. Louis won for the fourth time in their last five contests.

"This is a big turning point for us," Wainwright said. "It's almost like I wish we could move the All-Star break back a couple of weeks ago or a couple of weeks forward because I think we're getting on a roll."

The 25-year-old righthander helped himself by inducing four inning-ending double plays. Mark Reynolds, Conor Jackson, Orlando Hudson and Stephen Drew all ended potential threats by grounding into double plays.

"That's making pitches," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "We turned them. The infielders did a really good job. A lot of nice pivots and feeds and all that stuff but Adam made pitches to get them."

"It's amazing what happens when you let them work," Wainwright said. "Put the ball on the ground and throw strikes. My defense was awesome behind me."

After pitching seven scoreless innings, Wainwright was relieved by Randy Flores in the eighth inning after giving up a leadoff double to Reynolds and a walk to Miguel Montero.

Augie Ojeda chased Flores with a pinch-hit, two-run triple to cut the deficit to 3-2, but Russ Springer entered to record the final two outs, stranding Ojeda at third.

Jason Isringhausen got Montero to ground into a game-ending double play with the bases loaded in the ninth to register his 17th save of the season.

"Izzy's been nasty all year," Cardinals second baseman Aaron Miles said. "He gets to the point where you're not really worried when they start getting guys on in the ninth because he's been so good."

"For a game that we looked pretty stagnant for seven innings, we went out pretty hard there at the end," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "We got ourselves in a position to at least tie the game twice. We had a man on third with less than two outs twice the last two innings and didn't get them in."

Encarnacion gave the Cardinals all the runs they needed with a three-run blast off Diamondbacks starter Doug Davis (5-10) in the sixth inning.

"I didn't execute my next pitch and I got burned," Davis said. "That's what good hitters do, capitalize on mistakes. He's a good mistake hitter."

"We weren't doing much with (Davis)," La Russa said. "Then all of a sudden there's three on the board."

Ryan Ludwick led off the inning with a double and Albert Pujols followed with a walk to set the stage for Encarnacion, who hit his sixth home run of the season over the left center field wall for a 3-0 advantage.

"There's two pitches I wish I could have back," Davis said. "The one to Encarnacion was middle in and the one to Ludwick was a first-pitch fastball. I was trying to go down and away and I was pretty much up and in, right in (Ludwick's) happy zone."

Encarnacion was the offensive star for the second straight night. He had an RBI double in the eighth inning to tie the game and later scored on Scott Rolen's double in Wednesday's 5-4 victory over the Diamondbacks.

"You have to do what you can each at-bat," Encarnacion said. "Everything is not going to go your way all the time. Sometimes your going to get it sometimes you don't. So you try to get it more than it gets you."

Davis surrendered three runs and seven hits with five walks and five strikeouts over seven innings.

The Diamondbacks have dropped five of their last seven on their current 10-game road trip.

"We're not playing our best right now," Melvin said. "We have three more games to play, so we have to grind even harder the next few games."