Votto’s big night overshadowed by Cardinals

ST. LOUIS — With one mighty and emotional swing, Aledmys Diaz paid honor to a lost friend and jolted the Cardinals, who rode that spark to a rout of the Reds to keep pace in the National League Wild Card race. Diaz’s grand slam, one of five homers the Cardinals hit on Tuesday, and a gutsy performance from Adam Wainwright boosted the club to a 12-5 victory at Busch Stadium.

The win kept the Cardinals one game behind the Giants for the second NL Wild Card spot. The Mets remain 1 1/2 games ahead of St. Louis, which has five games left on its regular-season schedule.

“I’ve been through a lot of things the last couple days,” Diaz said. “This helped a little bit. It means a lot to me and my teammates. We’re looking for that spot in the playoffs.”

• Wild Card standings | Tiebreaker scenarios

“I don’t know if there has been a spot all year where we needed that more than we did tonight,” Wainwright said of Diaz’s home run. “I felt some serious goose bumps when he hit that.”

Wainwright tiptoed around trouble early to keep the Cardinals close and set the stage for perhaps the most poignant moment of the Cardinals’ season. Playing for the first time since losing childhood friend Jose Fernandez, Diaz crushed his first career grand slam to give the Cardinals a 5-2 lead in the fourth. It was the second of five home runs the Cardinals would hit in a four-inning span.

Reds starter Robert Stephenson served up the first two as he allowed five runs over four innings. He did not allow a hit until Matt Carpenter, playing through a finger injury, contributed a solo shot in the third. Three singles, including an infield hit and a blooper with one out in the fourth set up the Diaz long ball.

“I felt a lot better today, especially in the beginning of the game,” said Stephenson, who is 2-3 with a 6.27 ERA in six starts this season. “I was a lot more under control, I felt like, and I was able to throw more strikes and get ahead of guys better. It was just a nightmare inning in the fourth.”

Cincinnati, which enjoyed a four-homer game in the series opener, got homers on Tuesday from Joey Votto and Scott Schebler, the latter of which briefly pulled the Reds to within two after Diaz’s grand slam. Votto finished with a three-hit game off Wainwright, who, with a 5 2/3-inning performance, tied Dizzy Dean for sixth all-time in franchise history with his 134th career win.

MOMENTS THAT MATTEREDDivine intervention: Having just returned from spending a day with Fernandez’s family in Miami, Diaz honored his late friend by hanging a No. 16 jersey in the Cardinals’ dugout and then delivering one of his biggest hits of the season. With his first career grand slam, Diaz gave the Cardinals their first lead since Saturday. He pointed toward the sky upon reaching home and then again with his helmet after …

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