Arizona’s Kelly keeps up fast start

ST. LOUIS — Merrill Kelly threw seven shutout innings and Ketel Marte and Nick Ahmed each homered in the eighth inning, lifting the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-0 over the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday.

“I felt like it was going to be a race to two or three runs in this game and the first team to get there would win,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “The day started and stopped with Merrill. He was fantastic. You shut out the St. Louis Cardinals, you’re doing something.”

Marte led off the eighth by taking a 1-1 curveball off Miles Mikolas (1-1) into the right field bullpen for his first homer of the season. It snapped his 24-game homerless streak dating back to Oct. 2, 2021.

“Things haven’t gone the way I’ve plan but I was able to do my job there in that situation,” Marte said through a translator. “There’s a lot of baseball left and I have a lot of confidence in myself.”

One out later, Ahmed sent a 1-1 fastball into the left field bullpen for his second homer.

Kelly (2-1) pitched seven scoreless innings, holding the Cardinals to two hits and one hit batter.

“It was fun. Any time the other guy is putting up zeroes, you want to try and go out and match him,” Kelly said. “You want to pitch as well if not better than the other guy.”

He’s allowed four total earned runs in five starts. “The amount of balls I’ve feel like I’ve seen the other team hit hard off him is like none,” Ahmed said. “No one is taking good swings off him.”

Mikolas pitched 71⁄3 innings, allowing four hits with seven strikeouts.

Guardians 3, Athletics 1: Pinch-hitter Richie Palacios delivered a two-out, two-run double in the ninth inning and Cleveland took advantage of a key error to win at Oakland.

Steven Kwan had two hits in his return to the lineup as the Guardians won their second straight following a seven-game losing streak. The rookie outfielder, batting .354 in his first big league season, had missed five games with a sore hamstring.

A day after the two clubs combined for 17 runs and 21 hits, starters Shane Bieber of the Guardians and Cole Irvin of the A’s kept it close into the late innings.

It was 1-all with one out in the Cleveland ninth with a runner on first when Oscar Mercado hit a potential double-play grounder to rookie second baseman Nick Allen, who misplayed it for an error.

Palacios hit a towering double on a 3-1 pitch from Dany Jimenez (1-1).