ST. LOUIS — The Cardinals obviously haven’t won as much as they need and haven’t won as easily as they want, and even when they do, it’s sometimes followed by a carbuncle like Tuesday’s loss. But they emerged from that mess to filch an improbable series victory from Arizona by relying Wednesday on how they have won.

This is the way they most often will.

Starter Kyle Gibson darted out of traffic in the first inning and provided six solid innings, relying on superb defense and buying time for the Cardinals to jigsaw together some offense. A single here. A double there. Masyn Winn’s aggressive jump and a timely hit. Piece by piece, they went until a wild pitch from former teammate Jordan Montgomery invited the tie-breaking run that sent them toward a 5-1 victory Wednesday at Busch Stadium and their first series-finale win of the season.

The starter was steady. The defense was solid. The bullpen was resolute. The offense, still wheezing as a whole, was enough. The recipe is clear.

“This is the style of game we’re going to need in order to get to where we want to go,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “There are going to be games where we hit more doubles and homers and score that way as well because we have the personnel to do that. At the moment, that hasn’t been the case. So you have to do what we did. This is one of the ways and probably one of the most common ways we’ll see more wins.”

The Cardinals won two of three from the defending National League champs despite being outscored by them and mustering so few challenges in the first half of games.

On Monday, Arizona retired the first 12 Cardinals batters and strolled into the fifth perfect only to lose on the last pitch of the ballgame when Nolan Gorman, a left-handed hitter against a lefty pitcher, ended his 0-for-18 slump with a two-run homer. On Tuesday, Arizona romped, winning by 13. On Wednesday, Montgomery had the Cardinals scoreless through five, had allowed only one of his former teammates as far as second base and showed no hints of homecoming compassion.

In the first five innings of the three games, the Cardinals scored once against Arizona, on a solo homer.

Montgomery's control of the game shifted in the sixth when Brendan Donovan roped a single up the middle and Willson Contreras followed with a double on a breaking ball. What had been another ho-hum, dimmer-switch day for the offense had its flicker.

Nolan Arenado switched on the opportunity.

He ended the team’s 0-for-11 streak with runners in scoring position by lifting a single to left that tied the game. Montgomery’s wild pitch allowed Contreras to score — and the rest was up to the relievers.

“How we’re looking at it: It doesn’t matter what your numbers are like, if you treat it like a must-win game on a daily basis, just find a way to get on base,” Donovan said. “Find a way to get a dirt ball. Find a way to tag up and take an extra base. Find a way to beat one in the ground with a runner on. Maybe hit a fly ball. Just find a way to get a run across. If you do that over the course of the long sample size, I think you’ll be happy. If we can continue to do those small things, we’ll keep it trending in the right direction.”

Said Arenado: “We’ve got to score runs. For us to get to where we want to be, we have to score more runs. It’s rare for a whole lineup to not feel good, and we’re in that rare time right now where nobody really feels good. ...

“It seems like nothing has really come easy.”

Certainly the first did not for Gibson.

The game began with a flare to left field just over the head of Arenado. Gibson missed with a pitch to the next batter and allowed a single. He remained fixated on that mistake and made another one — plunking Joc Pederson to load the bases before getting an out.

“Give up first-pitch bloop hit. I threw the wrong pitch to the next guy. Hit the next guy,” Gibson said. “You know, you just have to stay focused and remember you’ve got to execute one pitch at a time. With this defense and how I throw, I kind of always know I’m one pitch away. Just try to figure out what that one pitch is and execute it. And let the defense work.”

The pitch was a 92.8-mph sinker.

The execution was over the outside of the plate, biting down.

That pitch coaxed a double play from Eugenio Suarez that sprang Gibson from the jam. The only run he allowed after loading the bases with no outs scored on a sacrifice fly. That was the only run Gibson (2-2) allowed in his quality start. In the fourth and fifth innings, he faced a total of four batters with two runners on base. He struck out three of them to unplug rallies.

“I know people probably hate hearing about silver linings and moral victories or whatever, and I get it,” Gibson said. “It’s 162 games. If we’re worried about one game here or there, even one month, man, it’s worrying about stuff that in the grand scheme of things is so small. Except for (Tuesday) and a couple of instances this year — how many games have we not been in (for) the seventh, eighth, ninth, where we have a chance to win? Once again, is it moral victories? You can look at it how you want. We’ve gotten beat in a couple of innings in big games, myself included.

“But the bullpen has been awesome. Defense has been awesome,” he continued. “And how many hitters in here feel like they’re really rolling? Right now, we’re battling to score runs when we need them, and we’re pushing runs across and getting wins.”

In the seventh inning against Montgomery (1-1), the Cardinals stole a run. Winn reached on an error that will likely be reviewed and considered for a hit. He did not stay at first for long. Marmol said the rookie shortstop was “on green, and he picked the right time.” Winn got an exceptional break off first, and Gorman tagged an elevated pitch to left. Winn never stopped — scoring from first on Gorman’s single.

An inning later, Lars Nootbaar widened the lead with a two-run double.

His was the Cardinals’ second hit of only two with runners in scoring position.

“I think it’s well-documented right now that our team isn’t exactly where we want to be offensively,” Nootbaar said. “When you can manufacture some runs like that, have some good at-bats, competitive at-bats and find some holes. Obviously you want to hit the home run and you want to do all the sexy things. ... We’ve got dogs on the mound. They’re keeping us in every single ballgame. It doesn’t take nine runs to win ballgames here. You score two, you might win 2-1. Proof was today.”

And the result was something scarcer than runs so far.

Almost 13 years after shortstop Rafael Furcal turned the phrase into a rallying cry, another shortstop repeated it. The Cardinals were leaving Wednesday evening for New York and a weekend series in Queens. Winn called the trip, because he could for the first time, a “happy flight.”

“Winning is always good. Winning going on the road is always good. Winning into an off day is even better,” Nootbaar said. “I think the ball is starting to turn a little bit in our direction.”

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