ST. LOUIS — Against a 101-mph sinker, Jordan Walker just mustered an encore.

The Cardinals’ right fielder lashed a two-out, RBI single in the eighth inning. His liner up the middle overcame some slippery defense in the top of the inning and carried the Cardinals to a 6-5 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

In back-to-back innings, on back-to-back swings, Walker provided a two-run double to regain a lead for the Cardinals and a two-out single to seize it again.

This time for good.

Closer Ryan Helsley (2-0) was awarded the win by the official scorer for pitching the ninth and not his 11th save. Arizona got the tying run to third base, but Helsley, on his 31st pitch and final, struck out Eugenio Suarez.

Former Cardinal Randal Grichuk put two key hits where the Cardinals couldn’t catch them — the first was a homer, and the second was a bloop double that dropped between three Cardinals fielders. That blooper gave Arizona a one-run lead going into the bottom of the eighth. Ivan Herrera’s walk and Alec Burleson’s double put two runners in scoring position, and Nolan Arenado’s groundout tied the game, 5-5, but also gave Arizona its second out.

When Arizona reliever Justin Martinez challenged Walker with a 100.9-mph sinker, he flipped it to center for the go-ahead hit and his third RBI.

Lead comes undone on defense

Poor fielding led directly to three of the Diamondbacks’ four runs as they took their first lead of the weekend in the eighth inning.

With lefty Steven Matz into the game specifically to quell left-handed batter Josh Naylor, the Diamondbacks’ first baseman drilled a line drive to right field. An inning after he gave the Cardinals the lead, Walker made a dive that helped Arizona answer. Naylor’s sinking liner slipped past Walker to allow two runs to score and Naylor to reach third with a triple. That tied the game, 4-4.

Grichuk’s air-drop single tied it when second baseman Brendan Donovan (running backward) couldn’t track it and Victor Scott II (running in from deep center) couldn’t reach it and Walker (from the side) couldn’t get there.

The ball dropped between to let Naylor score for a 5-4 lead.

The defensive mishaps undid starter Matthew Liberatore’s strong seven innings, during which he held the Diamondbacks to one run on six hits. That trumped Merrill Kelly’s strong six innings that included speeding from the second to the sixth before hitting a speedbump.

Lead taken early, regained late

The varied ways the Cardinals’ offense can generate runs continued with both halves of the lineup contributing first to take a slim lead and then to seize it back — with insurance.

Three consecutive singles led to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning before Arizona’s Merrill Kelly breezed through the next five innings.

Masyn Winn began the first rally with a single, took third on Brendan Donovan’s base hit, and then scored when Herrera poked a single up the middle.

That was the only run the game had for the first four innings and the only run the Cardinals had until the seventh. On Kelly’s 100th pitch of his start, the Cardinals snapped a 1-1 tie with Walker’s two-run double. Like the rally earlier Saturday and Friday’s decisive rally built upon walks, the seventh inning began modestly enough.

Burleson singled.

Arenado walked.

And then Walker hammered. Kelly struck out Walker in their first two meetings Saturday. He got the right fielder looking in the second and checking his swing in the fifth. In the seventh, Walker drilled a slider that left his bat at 113 mph. The ball sped through the gap and two fielders to give the Cardinals ample time for a 3-1 lead. Walker then scored on Yohel Pozo’s high-chopper to build the lead that Arizona later erased.

How the Grich stole the lead, part 1

Back at the ballpark he once called home until a trade to Toronto, Grichuk tied Saturday’s game the only way Arizona had scored in the series to that point.

He homered.

In the lineup to pit his right-handed bat against the Cardinals’ left-handed starter, Grichuk led off the fifth inning with a solo homer that traveled 401 feet into the seats beyond left field.

Liberatore had retired 12 of the first 15 Diamondbacks he faced and carried a scoreless outing into the fifth inning when Grichuk got his second at-bat. Liberatore filthiest pitch of the first four innings caught Grichuk looking for a strikeout in the second inning. On a 2-2 pitch, Liberatore bent a cascading curveball at 78 mph into the strike zone. All Grichuk could do was flinch.

To open the fifth inning, Liberatore got ahead in the count before trying his other breaking ball against Grichuk. The 82.4-mph slider didn’t have the same deception or plunge as the curveball, and Grichuk tagged it for a 109.1-mph loft to left.

The former Cardinal drew the ire of fans at Busch Stadium for the Diamondbacks’ home celebration – which is a jab step before third base and then popping up to pantomime a jump shot in basketball. A large portion of the paid-attendance crowd of 37,380 booed Grichuk just as they jeered Ketel Marte when he did the same Friday night.

The homer was Grichuk’s second of the season and 139th since leaving the Cardinals after the 2017 season. Grichuk, now 33, spent this past season with Arizona and hit 12 homers to go with a .528 slugging percentage, his highest since a .548 slugging percentage in 2015 with the Cardinals. Grichuk re-signed with the D-backs and has part of the offense that Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol praised and compared to the league’s best.

De-fanging Arizona

Headlined by Marte, an MVP finalist in 2024, and Corbin Carroll, a rookie of the year in 2024, the Diamondbacks’ lineup is, somewhat like a coiled snake, overlooked at great risk.

Arizona began Saturday’s game with the second-most runs in the National League (259) despite a three-game losing streak, and they boasted the fourth-best slugging percentage in the majors (.447) and OPS, too (.780). They greeted Friday starter Miles Mikolas with a series of left-handed hitters to challenge him, and on Saturday Carroll got a break but Liberatore had to navigate through right-handed batters and Marte at the leadoff spot.

“You don’t feel good about him in the box in general,” Marmol said Saturday morning. “I would put the lineup across the way up against New York, Philly, Detroit — just what they’re able to do one through nine is very impressive. … When you look at overall OPS, they’re fourth in the league for a reason. They can score with the best of them. They’re ability to drive the baseball all over the park is up there in the league, for sure.”

Or, drive it out of the park.

Which all they had done against Cardinals pitchers halfway through Saturday’s game.

Like Mikolas before him, Liberatore held the Diamondbacks to a solo homer in his first six innings. All three of the runs Arizona scored on Friday night came on two swings — both homers.

Arizona got back-to-back singles to right field in the first inning Saturday with one out, and Liberatore squelched the rally from there. In the third, Liberatore plunked Marte and allowed a single to Geraldo Perdomo to give Arizona another chance to score in a way other than a homer. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. bounced into a double play to end that chance.

Through the first two games of the series, Cardinals starters held the Diamondbacks to two runs in 13 innings, and both came on solo homers. Mikolas and Liberatore combined to strike out eight and limit the lineup that drew such praise to 10 hits.

Know thy ballpark

It didn’t result in an out nor did the hit generate a rally for the Diamondbacks but there was a moment in the fifth inning that showed shortstop Winn’s awareness of the ballpark he calls home. Marte led off the fifth inning with a base hit down the third-base line. The ball was bounding toward the outcropping of seats that juts toward left field.

While left fielder Lars Nootbaar had to play the ball as if it was going to clear the point of the seats and go into the corner, Winn dashed out to play the carom.

When the ball hit the padding and ricocheted into shallow left, there was Winn to retrieve it and in one motion attempt to catch Marte advancing to second.

Marte slid ahead of the tag – barely.

One batter later, Liberatore ended the inning with a groundout.

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