ST. LOUIS _ Adam Wainwright's back looked fine.
Two days after missing a scheduled start with back spasms, Wainwright made his first start after the All-Star break on Sunday and was on his game. He allowed just four hits and no runs over seven innings, striking out seven and walking one, as the Cardinals won their second game in a row, beating Arizona 5-2 at Busch Stadium.
Wainwright didn't have much trouble to pitch out of, but when he did, he got through it. The Diamondbacks had runners on first and third with two out in the third and he got Ketel Marte to fly out. After the first two hitters reach base in the sixth, he retired Arizona's 3-4-5 hitters in order. After that, he went back out to pitch the seventh and retired the side in order. Dominic Leone pitched a scoreless eighth before John Brebbia allowed Arizona to score twice with two out in the ninth. Carlos Martinez came in to get the final out and pick up a save.
"Nothing surprises me, ever, about Adam Wainwright," manager Mike Shildt said. "He's a special individual, a special talent and he was clearly outstanding today.
"Adam's a high expectation (guy), just like our club. He's exactly what we want in that he's always striving for more. So, if we're doing well, we want to be even better. Adam's a great representation of that. That's his lion heart and his warrior mentality. He's pitched well, but that's not good enough. He wants to be _ and is _ elite. That's his bar. That's our bar, as well."
It was the second scoreless start of the season for Wainwright, who threw eight scoreless innings against Chicago on June 2. He has held the opposition to three runs or less in each of his past six starts. The five runs the Cardinals scored for him matched the run support he's gotten in his past five games combined. The win was his 154th, moving him past Bill Sherdel for fourth place in Cardinals history.
Paul Goldschmidt, who hit a broken-bat single in the first that got the scoring started for the Cardinals, hit one much harder in the third. He powered a two-run homer to left field in the third inning, part of a three-run inning that opened the game up for the Cardinals.
"It was a good swing," Goldschmidt said. "I was able to hit it and get it out of there. The other ones haven't felt bad either, they've been close but I haven't been able to get the results. Try to keep having good at-bats, hit the ball hard, try to help us win.
"Results were better, to get a home run and another hit, but me, individually, I have to do it the whole rest of the second half. You can't just do it one game. I think that's the key for us as a team, show up and do it every day. We've played good for a day or a series but to win the division or get in the playoffs as a wild card, we're going to have to do it basically every game through the end of the year."
The third inning started with Wainwright drawing a leadoff walk from Arizona's Zach Greinke. Matt Carpenter lined out to short, but Nick Ahmed, trying to catch Wainwright off first, threw the ball into the Cardinals dugout, which sent Wainwright to third, where he scored on a single to right by Yairo Munoz.
Goldschmidt followed that with a towering shot to left, measuring 416 feet, for his 17th home run of the season and his third in six games. Dexter Fowler and Kolten Wong followed with singles, but catcher Andrew Knizner grounded out to end the inning.
The Cardinals added a run in the fourth on a leadoff double by Harrison Bader, who went to third on a sacrifice by Wainwright and scored on a sacrifice fly by Carpenter.
After driving in all four runs in Saturday's 4-2 win, Tyler O'Neill got the Cardinals started with an RBI double down the left-field line in the first.
With two outs, Goldschmidt hit a broken-bat blooper to left that Tim Locastro got a bad jump on and allowed to drop in front of him. O'Neill then hit a hard shot down the left field line that Locastro thought would hit the jutting out wall down the line and he moved in on it. But it didn't and went into the corner, forcing a course correction from Locastro and allowing Goldschmidt to score easily from first.
Going into Saturday night's game, O'Neill had four RBIs in 29 games; he has five in the past two.
