Jun. 16 — Throwing more balls than strikes when the count has exceeded 100 pitches generally is not a recipe for victory. But Cardinals lefthander Kwang Hyun Kim, exiting the 10-day injured list following his recovery from his second lower back injury of the spring, managed to keep his team in the game Tuesday night at Busch Stadium despite throwing only 49 strikes out of 102 offerings.

That was because Kim forced the Miami Marlins to strand six runners in the first three innings before he sped through his final three. The Cardinals, who had only one hit off lefthanded rookie Trevor Rogers in the first five innings, packaged two hits, a stolen base by Jose Rondon, who had one of the hits, and Rogers’ error for a run in the sixth to tie the score.

Then, for the second night in succession, the Cardinals broke a tie in their final at-bat as Paul Goldschmidt, who had knocked in the first run, crushed his ninth homer to right center to lead off the ninth against Yimi Garcia to provide a 2-1 walk-off victory before 24,736, the Cardinals’ second-best home crowd of season. The Cardinals have won two games this week already after winning just one in each of the preceding two weeks.

“It’s no secret that we haven’t played well the last two or three weeks,” said Goldschmidt. “There’s definitely no panic but you’ve got sometimes to make adjustments and play better. It’s not like we were just unlucky. We just weren’t playing well. “We’ve played better the last few days but there’s still a lot of games to go, so it’s not like this changes everything.”

Goldschmidt took a lengthy session of extra batting practice on the field before Monday’s game and then repaired to center field to pick up most of the balls himself. Over the past two nights, he has looked like a different hitter, banging the ball deep to all fields and also lining three singles that each figured in the scoring.

“No doubt it’s better these last two days,” said Goldschmidt. “A hundred percent.”

On his at-bat against Garcia, he got down in the count 1-2 and said, “I was honestly trying to shorten up and put something in play. I told myself before I walked up there not to try to do too much. It’s funny what happens when you do that sometimes.

“I haven’t been getting the job done,” said Goldschmidt, who began the night at .248, “whether it’s guys on base, driving in them or getting on base for Nolan (Arenado) and the guys behind him. There have been a lot of games where if I got a couple of hits like I did tonight, we might have won one, two or maybe more wins.”

The past two games. Goldschmidt, who had six career walk-off homers in his career, has struck out only once after fanning 61 times in the club’s first 66 games and he notably was hard on himself about the recent sweep by the Cubs in Chicago in which Goldschmidt was one for 11 with too much weak contact for his liking.

“I feel like, personally, I’ve cost us a few games,” he said. “I can’t go back and change that. We have a good team and a lot of guys have been doing their job but I haven’t done my best. I just try to keep working. That’s what I was doing yesterday.

“It doesn’t guarantee results but I’m definitely not going to just show up and say, ‘Oh, well,’ and hope for the best.”

Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said he has fallen into the trap of taking Goldschmidt for granted “because he’s such a quiet, get-it-done guy” and does many subtle things to help a team “I hate to see anybody be

“I hate to see anybody be hard on himself when they’re contributing a lot in a lot of different ways,” said Shildt, “but I also respect the fact that you take ownership and say, ‘I’ve got to look in the mirror,’ and that’s what winners do and that’s what character people do. And Goldy’s both.”

As they did on Monday night, the back three of the Cardinals’ bullpen — Genesis Cabrera, Giovanny Gallegos and Alex Reyes — posted a scoreless inning apiece and none gave up a hit, with Reyes gaining his fourth victory. The Cardinals’ bullpen has allowed just one run in 18 innings against the Marlins this year as the Cardinals have won all five games.

They are 21-9 against teams who currently have losing records and 13-24 against teams with winning marks.

Kim, who said it would take him about three games to feel confident with his back, walked three and allowed a single but no runs over the first two innings.

The Marlins scored in the third and could have had more due to some lax throwing by Cardinals outfielders. After Starling Marte drew Kim’s fourth walk, Jesus Aguilar singled to left center, with Marte taking third. Center fielder Dylan Carlson gloved the ball to his right but, wheeling around, fired the ball over the head of shortstop Paul DeJong and Aguilar belatedly dived into second as third baseman Arenado retrieved the errant sphere near the pitcher’s mound.

Adam Duvall singled to left to score Marte but when Tyler O’Neill’s throw came all the way to catcher Yadier Molina as the slow-running Aguilar held third, Duvall made second.

But, Kim then got ground balls to Arenado, second baseman Edmundo Sosa, who made an especially good play, and DeJong, and the Marlins runners were stranded at second and third.

“We came into the dugout and felt like we won that inning, even though we were losing the game,” said Goldschmidt. “That could easily have been a three- or four-run inning. Chances are if we’d had to score three or four, we probably wouldn’t have done it. Look how the game ended up.”

Shlldt said the game was won just as much in the first three innings by Kim as it was late. “I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Shildt said.

In the eighth, Shildt tried something that Miami manager Don Mattingly had attempted the night before. He sent up a pitcher as a pinch hitter to try to bunt runners into scoring position.

Both ended in double-play disasters.

With runners at first and second and nobody out, Adam Wainwright, Monday’s starter, came off the bench. Wainwright bunted to the left side but third baseman Isan Diaz, who hadn’t thrown to first base on Lane Thomas’ preceding bunt, hopped on this one, fired to shortstop Jazz Chisholm for a force at third and Wainwright was doubled at first.

“I really thought about it for 15 minutes while the inning was going on,” Shildt said. Lefthander Richard Bleier is difficult on lefthanders, thus excluding Matt Carpenter and righthanded-hitting Andrew Knizner hits many ground balls and would be facing a ground-ball pitcher.

“I was trying to stay out of the double play,” said Shildt. “And we got a double play.”

On the plus side, Cardinals starting pitchers Kim, Wainwright and Carlos Martinez have allowed just three earned runs over 19 innings in the past three games.