Cards leapfrog Fish despite Ichiro throw

MIAMI — On a day in which they finalized a seven-player trade designed to boost their chances at ending a 12-year playoff drought, the Marlins watched the Cardinals elbow past them in the National League Wild Card race by battering starter Jose Urena. Buoyed by a six-run fifth that chased Urena from the game, the Cardinals captured their ninth win in 12 games on Friday with an 11-6 victory at Marlins Park.

The win positions the Cardinals one game ahead of the Marlins for the second NL Wild Card spot. The Dodgers entered the day with a two-game lead over both clubs for the first Wild Card berth.

“I was unaware,” said Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, who, with 59 games remaining on the schedule, hasn’t started studying the standings. “That’s how big of a deal [it is].”

The Cardinals, who lead the NL in home runs, hit another two to back starter Mike Leake. Two-run blasts by Jeremy Hazelbaker and Tommy Pham highlighted what was a huge night by the bottom half of the Cardinals’ order. Just ahead of Hazelbaker, five-hole hitter Yadier Molina tallied three hits. Behind Pham, Wong had a three-hit night and finished a homer shy of the cycle.

“It’s two games. I think that’s how we have to look at it,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said of dropping the first two of this four-game series. “There’s going to be more made of it this time of year, playing the Cardinals, but every series is big. We have to go from here. We’ve got two more games left in this series, and then we’ve got to go to Chicago. And that will be a big series.”

Urena, making his third start of the season, gave up a career-high eight runs while struggling with his command. He walked four, hit another two batters and was charged with five of the six runs the Cardinals scored during a fifth inning in which 11 batters came to the plate. The six runs matched a season high for the Cardinals in an inning.

That 9-1 lead was hardly secure, however, as the Marlins answered with five runs off Leake in the bottom half of the fifth. A three-run homer by Martin Prado capped the inning. That frame ended with a strikeout of Ichiro Suzuki, who remains on 2,998 hits for his MLB career after an 0-for-4 night. Fans awaiting an Ichiro milestone were treated to a highlight on defense, though, as the 42-year-old outfielder nailed Wong at the plate on a fourth-inning throw that Statcast™ tracked at 91.6 mph, Ichiro’s second-hardest throw of the season from the outfield.

MOMENTS THAT MATTEREDSweet revenge: Facing Urena for the first time since the two tangled in a Minor League brawl a month ago, Hazelbaker crushed a homer off Urena’s 2-1 changeup to give the Cardinals a 2-0 lead in the second. Urena threw a pitch near Hazelbaker’s head during a June 27 Triple-A game, and Hazelbaker reacted by charging the mound and initiating a …

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