Mulder on mark

ST. LOUIS – When Mark Mulder took a line drive off his arm in the second inning and doubled over in pain, the St. Louis Cardinals figured it would be a short outing for their 16-game winner.

Instead, Mulder shook off the hard shot to his left biceps from Joe Randa – the same way he tossed aside a pair of poor tuneup starts – and put his team on the brink of a playoff sweep.

Mulder pitched shutout ball into the seventh inning and the Cardinals once again built an early lead, beating the San Diego Padres 6-2 Thursday for a 2-0 edge in their best-of-5 N.L. series.

“Once the inning starts there’s so much adrenaline it didn’t bother me much,” Mulder said. “If I couldn’t have made good pitches I would have said, ‘All right, I’ve had enough.’

“I didn’t want to come out of that game.”

Matt Morris will try to clinch it for St. Louis on Saturday at San Diego against Woody Williams.

“We held home-field advantage,” shortstop David Eckstein said. “One thing we’ve got to do, we’ve got to stay aggressive. We can’t wait to get over there.”

The Cardinals, who led the majors with 100 wins this season, have advanced to the N.L. championship series four times in five chances under manager Tony La Russa. San Diego, which limped into the playoffs with an 82-80 record, hasn’t shown any signs of stopping them.

“We’ve put pressure on that team, we just haven’t come up with the big hit yet,” outfielder Brian Giles said. “We’re playing for our lives now.”

The 2003 Red Sox were the last of the seven teams that have rallied from a 2-0 deficit in division series play.

Mulder was 16-8 in his first season since being acquired from Oakland, but he gave up seven earned runs over 52/3 innings in two starts after the Cardinals clinched the N.L. Central. Plus, the lefty was a decidedly better pitcher at night (14-3, 2.26 ERA) than day (2-5, 6.86).

Mulder scoffed at both of those trends the day before Game 2, blanking a lineup stacked with seven right-handed hitters until the late innings and backed by four double plays, tying the NLDS record. Mulder got 13 groundball outs and only one fly out.

“I like using my defense; that’s why when you give up a hit I’m not going to be that mad,” Mulder said.