Cards’ lead diminishes

ST. LOUIS — Things are going so well for the San Diego Padres’ final-month surge, they could afford to give Trevor Hoffman the day off.

Mike Piazza’s single snapped a seventh-inning tie and the Padres got stingy relief without their record-setting closer after starter David Wells was scratched due to gout, beating the sagging St. Louis Cardinals 6-5 Monday night in a matchup of NL division leaders.

Manager Bruce Bochy told Hoffman, who had pitched in six of the last eight games, he’d have the night off no matter what. Even with two men on in the ninth, baseball’s career saves leader remained seated.

“I kept peeking into the bullpen half-thinking he was maybe going to warm up to get the last out or something,” Scott Linebrink said after finishing for his second save this season. “There was no safety net.”

“I don’t know how Hoffy does that almost 500 times, I think I’d have a few more gray hairs if I’d keep doing that.”

Brian Giles hit a three-run double in a five-run second and the bullpen allowed three hits in 5 2/3 innings to help the Padres win for the 10th time in 13 games. San Diego has a two-game lead in the NL West over idle Los Angeles with six games to play and a 1 1/2-game edge over the wild-card contending Phillies, who lost to the Astros.

“We don’t care about them,” Giles said. “We’re trying to take care of business ourselves and not depend on other teams helping us out.”

The Cardinals, meanwhile, lost their sixth in a row and saw their Central lead cut to 2 1/2 games by Houston, which beat Philadelphia 5-4. St. Louis led by seven games before its skid, but its magic number remained at five for the third straight game.

Jim Edmonds connected for a three-run, pinch-hit homer in his first at-bat since Aug. 26 and Chris Duncan also homered for St. Louis. Edmonds has been out while recovering from the effects of a concussion and homered for the first time since Aug. 10.

“What a way to get us back into the game,” manager Tony La Russa said. “If this was a movie, we would have won the game, but we didn’t.”

Linebrink got four outs for the save in place of Hoffman, who posted his major league-record 479th save Sunday.

Linebrink struck out three in the ninth, fanning Scott Rolen with two men on to end it.