ST. LOUIS — Before Nolan Arenado connected with the gapper that got everybody running, they had to walk.

Stymied most of the game by their irritation with the strike zone and Arizona right-hander Zac Gallen’s control in and around it, the Cardinals turned three walks, including one with the bases loaded, in the sixth inning into a tie game — and then kept on running. Arenado split the outfielders with a drive to the left-center wall that pinballed away for a triple and cleared the bases to send the Cardinals to a 4-3 victory against the Diamondbacks on Friday at Busch Stadium.

Arenado’s first triple since June 2023 broke the tie.

Ryan Helsley piloted through some two-out turbulence in the ninth to assure a win with his 10th save.

Gallen walked one intentionally and two unintentionally in the decisive sixth inning to bring up Arenado with the bases loaded and two outs. Earlier in the week, when the Cardinals shifted him down to No. 6 in the lineup, Arenado said the look may be different from cleanup but the job wouldn’t be: Drive in teammates when they get on base. Drive in he did.

Three days after he launched a home run against the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, Arenado’s search for his swing took him into the gap with a long drive off Gallen (3-6), the former Cardinals prospect they traded years ago for Marcell Ozuna only to see him emerge as an All-Star in the desert.

Arenado jumped a fastball that came off Gallen’s fingers at 93.5 mph and left Arenado’s bat at 99.5 mph. Center fielder Alek Thomas made a lunge for the ball at the warning track, but it caromed away from him to give Arenado & Co. plenty of time to race the bases.

The timing off Arenado’s game-breaker, made a winner of starter Miles Mikolas (4-2), who pitched six superb innings. The Cardinals have won his past five consecutive starts, and he’s chipped five runs of his ERA from the season’s first week.

Helsley allowed a two-run homer in the ninth inning with two outs to tighten the score but not lose the lead. Arenado, fittingly, caught a pop-up to end the game and give Helsley four consecutive seasons with at least 10 saves.

Rally sparked by (intentional) walk

The swing in the game began when a Cardinal chose not to swing at all.

For the second consecutive game, the Cardinals had one hit through the first five innings of a game. When Victor Scott II opened the sixth with a leadoff single, he also had three of the Cardinals’ past six hits over three days. What followed and fueled the rally that engulfed the inning wasn’t hits at all — until Arenado’s triple.

Lars Nootbaar walked to nudge Scott to second.

No. 2 hitter Masyn Winn dropped a textbook bunt to move his teammates both into scoring position with one out.

That was when the Diamondbacks decided to avoid one of the hit leaders in the National League and pitch instead to the Cardinals’ leading hitter.

Go figure.

Gallen intentionally walked Brendan Donovan to fill the bases ahead of young designated hitter Ivan Herrera. All he brought to the game was a .417 average, and since the start of the 2024 season only Aaron Judge (.342) and Bobby Witt Jr. (.325) had higher averages in more than 300 at-bats than Herrera’s .325. That led the National League, followed closely by batting champion Luis Arraez, at .311. That’s the hitter primed to swing and a hitter who tied the game by not swinging at all.

Despite the frustration with the umpire’s strike zone, Herrera judiciously worked the count and took a bases-loaded walk to force home Scott and knot the game, 1-1.

Those frustrations resurfaced one at-bat later as Gallen again took a Cardinal into a full count. Alec Burleson didn’t flinch at breaking balls that slipped toward his shoe tops, and then Gallen snapped a full-count knuckle curve. The breaking ball caught the strike zone and as Burleson stepped toward first, umpire Ron Kulpa called it a strike to change Burleson’s direction.

But it did not detour the rally.

Arenado was due up next with the bases-clearing crack.

Forgetting Fenway

In his nine starts this season at any ballpark not named Fenway Park, Mikolas has been as sharp, as consistent as any of the opening months of his All-Star seasons.

The veteran right-hander carried his second consecutive quality start through the sixth inning on Friday night and continued a streak of eight consecutive starts that he’s allowed three or fewer runs. Mikolas retired the first eight Diamondbacks he faced, and he did not allow a hit to any of the first 10. Arizona snapped his scoreless spree to start the game with Ketel Marte’s solo homer to lead off the fourth inning.

Mikolas pressed on from there and allowed only three more hits through the next three innings — all of them singles and none of them advancing a runner past second.

In the sixth inning, back-to-back singles gave the Diamondbacks a two-out chance to add to their score. Eugenio Suarez, who hit four home runs in a game earlier this season, laced a line drive toward left that seemed almost certain to bring home another run against Mikolas. Winn jumped to snag the liner for the inning’s final out — and Mikolas’ final out of the game.

Mikolas shaved his ERA from 3.77 down to 3.51, but that is only the façade of how well he’s pitched. Outside of a nine-run dud at Fenway on the Cardinals’ first road trip of the season, Mikolas has been among the steadiest pitchers in their rotation. He allowed 11 hits in 2 2/3 innings to the Red Sox, and he’s allowed only 33 in the other 48 1/3 innings he’s pitched.

His ERA in Fenway is 30.34.

His ERA anywhere this season is 2.23.

Marmol furious, ejected

It was a low pitch to Herrera that eventually inspired the phrase magic enough to get Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol ejected in the fourth inning by Kulpa.

Herrera took a pitch that appeared low of the strike zone, not too far from a pitch Kulpa called a ball earlier in the bat. The Cardinals’ dugout took issue, and Kulpa tossed Marmol before the manager left his perch. A vigorous argument ensued near home plate — one that Kulpa hasn’t been to in several years.

A St. Louis native with family still in the area, Kulpa was calling his first game at home plate back in his hometown since April 2022. That too was a Diamondbacks’ visit.

The ejection was Marmol’s third of the season, 18th of his career.

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