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ST. LOUIS -- When San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeff Samardzija started the fifth inning Saturday night, he owned a three-hit shutout and a four-run lead over the St. Louis Cardinals. "He was throwing 98 (mph) and throwing 94 mile an hour cutters and sinkers," St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. "He was dealing. We weren't getting much to hit."
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Suddenly, Samardzija couldn't keep the ball in Busch Stadium.
Bombing four homers off him in a nine-batter stretch, the Cardinals authored a startling comeback by scoring the final seven runs for a 7-4 victory.
In upping its record to 29-27, St. Louis got four hitless innings from its bullpen. Tyler Lyons (2-0) picked up the win with a clean sixth and Trevor Rosenthal worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his ninth save -- and his first since May 18.
But the story was the sudden barrage of long balls from a team which is hitting them with stunning frequency up and down the lineup. After clouting only 137 last year, the Cardinals are on pace to whack well over 200 this year with 76 in 56 games.
The latest outburst started with a leadoff jack from Brandon Moss, his team-high 11th, in the fifth. Two outs later, pinch-hitter Jeremy Hazelbaker singled and Matt Carpenter doubled off the first base bag.
Aledmys Diaz worked a 3-0 count and got the green light from Matheny. Diaz's short swing caught all of Samardzija's 96-mph fastball and propelled it an estimated 426 feet, striking almost halfway up the left field foul pole for a game-tying three-run shot.
"I wasn't even looking at the foul pole," Diaz said. "I just started running and then I looked at the umpire and he said fair ball."
Diaz's rocket charged up the sellout crowd of 45,453. Stephen Piscotty and Matt Adams kept them out of their seats to start the sixth.
Piscotty, ambushing a first-pitch fastball from Samardzija, lined his seventh homer into the right field seats. Two pitches later, Adams jumped on a high breaking ball and launched it 397 feet into the bleachers in right, giving St. Louis a 6-4 lead and ending Samardzija's night.
Samardzija (7-4) gave up six runs and nine hits, walking none and fanning two. Prior to the episode of Home Run Derby, Samardzija had allowed five in 80 innings.
"Yeah, that will happen with a good team," San Francisco shortstop Brandon Crawford said. "These guys score a lot of runs and they have good power. You're going to have games like that. It did happen pretty fast, though. They score a lot of runs and they're able to do it quick."
Crawford was a primary reason the Giants (35-23) owned a 4-0 lead halfway through the game. He doubled in the second and scored on Samardzija's two-out single, and legged out a triple with one out in the fourth and came home on a sacrifice fly from Gregor Blanco.
Joe Panik also bedeviled Cardinals starter Michael Wacha, ripping an RBI double in the first to plate Denard Span and lashing a ground-rule double in the fifth that moved Span to third. A wild pitch plated Span for the 4-0 advantage.
Wacha, who left after five innings, six hits and four runs with two walks and four strikeouts, was saved from his seventh consecutive loss by St. Louis' bleacher-busting bats.
"It's a great asset to have," Matheny said. "Even when we were down 4-0, you could sense it in the dugout. We just needed to get a couple of guys on base just to see what would happen."
The Cardinals capped the scoring in the eighth when Yadier Molina's groundout to third scored Moss, who tripled off the left-center field wall to cap a three-hit game that left him a double shy of the cycle.
NOTES: St. Louis SS Jhonny Peralta (left thumb) is nearing the end of his rehab assignment at Class-A Palm Beach, where he went 2-for-4 with a walk Saturday night. General manager John Mozeliak said Friday that the team plans to activate Peralta on Tuesday when the Cardinals start a road trip against Cincinnati. ... San Francisco's 21 wins in May tied a franchise record for its most in any month since moving from New York in 1958. ... Despite being only two games over .500, St. Louis owns the NL's third-best run differential at plus 51.
