Cardinals down Dodgers in 12 innings in wild-card showdown

LOS ANGELES -- Jon Jay was having a miserable time at the plate until the 12th inning, when he hit a clutch RBI double that made he and his teammates forget all the ugly at-bats that preceded it.

The go-ahead hit sparked a three-run rally for the St. Louis Cardinals, who earned a split of their four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 5-2 victory Sunday and regained undisputed possession of the second NL wild-card spot.

"It was a long one, and both teams fought hard," Jay said after the 4-hour, 25-minute marathon. "Everyone knows what's at stake right now, and we've got our work cut out for us.

"We haven't been playing too well lately, but we've been playing hard. Today we came up with a win on getaway day, and it put us back up again. That's huge. But every game from here on out is our most important game. We've been there before, so we know what we've got to do. It's just a matter of doing it."

John Ely (0-2), the ninth of a franchise-record 10 pitchers used by Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, issued a leadoff walk to Matt Carpenter, and Jay drove him in from second base with a line drive into the right-field corner on an 0-2 changeup.

"Jon had an uncharacteristic day for himself up to that point, but he's been very good this season and filled a big hole for us in the leadoff spot. And today he came through with one of the biggest hits of our year right now," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "We had a tough time today. You look at that scoreboard and all those Ks, I mean, we had a lot of strikeouts (15), so we just needed somebody to step up."

Jay finished the 2-5 trip 4 for 32 with two RBIs. He struck out his first three times Sunday and was 1 for 6.

"You've got to stay positive, and that's what I tried to do all day," Jay said. "I tried not to let my other at-bats bother me."

Jay scored the second run of the inning on an infield hit up the middle by Allen Craig, and the final one came in on Ely's bases-loaded walk to Yadier Molina.

Rookie Shelby Miller (1-0) pitched one inning for his first major league victory. Jason Motte got three outs for his 35th save in 42 chances after giving up the tying and winning runs in Saturday night's 4-3 loss.

"If you have a bad day, you want to get back out there and move past the last outing. And I was able to do that today," Motte said. "After something like that, you have to have a short memory because you really don't have a choice. If you re-live every pitch and every out over again every single day, you'll drive yourself insane. I just looked at the video yesterday after the game to see what I did and didn't do."

Both teams have 15 games remaining to settle the wild-card situation. The Cardinals' next nine games are against the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs, who are a combined 81 games under .500 and 69 1/2 games out of first place. The Dodgers embark on a nine-game trip against East-leading Washington, Central-leading Cincinnati and San Diego before ending the regular season with a six-game homestand against Colorado and West-leading San Francisco.