All is Wells: Cardinals win behind Kip’s strong outing

St. Louis has won two straight after a five-game skid.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Kip Wells ended a seven-game losing streak with seven strong innings and was backed by three home runs, a rare power display that helped the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-3 Wednesday night.

David Eckstein opened the first with his fifth career leadoff homer, Jim Edmonds hit his second of the year in the second and Chris Duncan added a two-run shot in the fifth for the Cardinals, who have won two straight after losing five in a row.

The Cardinals have hit a major-league low eight homers this month, five from Duncan, who has connected in three straight games.

All of the homers came off Ian Snell (4-3), who had allowed only two in 58 2-3 innings all season and none in his three previous starts. Snell allowed four runs on seven hits in six innings for Pittsburgh, which has lost four in a row.

The Cardinals were denied a fourth homer on center fielder Chris Duffy’s leaping catch at the wall robbed Juan Encarnacion for the second out in the first.

Power outage

The barrage ended a string of 24 straight games without more than one homer at home for St. Louis, which entered the night trailing the majors with 21 homers. The Cardinals had gone 57 innings without homering at home before Duncan hit a three-run shot in the sixth inning of a 9-4 victory over Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

Wells (2-8) faced the Pirates for the first time since he went to the Rangers at the trade deadline last July and allowed one earned run on five hits in seven innings.

Pittsburgh scored twice in the sixth with a rally begun when Duncan over-ran Jose Bautista’s drive down the left field line and near the warning track on a play ruled a double, and also marred by second baseman Adam Kennedy’s fielding error.

Wells, a budget free agent pickup who replaced Jeff Weaver in the St. Louis rotation, entered with a major league high in losses, runs allowed (43) and a 6.75 ERA that he lowered to 6.10. He pitched with a lead for only the fourth time in 10 starts, and the Cardinals were outscored 42-8 in his previous five starts.

Adam LaRoche’s RBI double in the eighth off Randy Flores cut the deficit to a run.

Scott Spiezio had a pinch-hit RBI single in the bottom of the eighth to restore the Cardinals’ two-run lead.

Jason Isringhausen got the last five outs for his 11th save in 12 chances. Isringhausen, who earned his first save in nine days, walked Jason Bay on four pitches to put runners on first and second with one out in the eighth, then struck out Ryan Doumit and Xavier Nady.