PHOENIX -- For the first time in six starts, Joe Saunders did not have it Monday.
With St. Louis in town, it was a bad day for a bad day.
The Cardinals entered as the best-hitting team in the National League, and they presented plenty of evidence in a 9-6 victory at Chase Field on Monday.
Saunders gave up nine hits and six earned runs in 3 1/3 innings, and the trouble started early, when Rafael Furcal hit the third pitch of the game for a 441-foot home run to left-center field. The Cardinals had three homers and a 7-0 lead by the fourth.
When the Cardinals pulled surprise early-season success Lance Lynn (6-0) after five innings, the D-backs made things interesting by scoring six runs in the sixth inning to pull within one. Cody Ransom’s two-run, 452-foot homer into Friday’s Front Row Sports Grill started the comeback, his fourth homer in 10 games.
The Cardinals responded with two more bases-empty homers, and the D-backs did not have another rally in them.
“It was warm tonight. The ball was carrying pretty good. How many home runs were hit tonight?” said Ransom, aware there were six.
Ransom continues to produce, with three homers in his last five starts and 12 RBIs in 10 games since being purchased from Class AAA Reno.
“He’s done a great job,” manager Kirk Gibson said.
“It’s been hard to take him out of the lineup, no doubt.”
Saunders had given up only five earned runs and one home run in his previous 36 1/3 innings, and he threw five shutout innings against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium in his only other career start against them last year.
“Left some balls up. Paid for it,” Saunders said.
“Six words. Plain and simple. Didn’t have it.”
Lynn, 6-0, pitched five shutout innings to drop his ERA to 1.40. He was won all six of his starts, giving up six runs total.
The D-backs lost shortstop Willie Bloomquist in the fifth inning, after he turned his left ankle the inning before while fielding Tyler Greene’s infield single in the hole and planting to throw. Ransom moved from third base to shortstop, and Ryan Roberts took over at third.
“It was like a hot knife in my ankle for about a half-hour, but I’m fine,” Bloomquist said.
The D-backs played the last four innings without Justin Upton, who was removed in a double-switch after striking out with one out in the fifth. Upton, hitting second in the order, was 0 for 3, and he also struck out in the first after Gerardo Parra opened the inning with a triple to right-center.
“With Justin, we knew where our pitching was. You start counting innings, and you don’t have a choice there really, either. You have to try to get through,” Gibson said about the number of innings needed from the bullpen after Saunders’ early exit.
“Joe went three and a third, and that puts a lot of pressure on your bullpen, not only for tonight, but we are looking at tomorrow and the next day.”
The D-backs used five relievers, and Bryan Shaw was the only one scored upon, giving up homers to Allen Craig and David Freese leading off the seventh for the final two runs of the game.
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