By Rob Rains, The Sports Xchange

ST. LOUIS -- Mike Leake spent a good portion of last winter hoping he would be pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season.

The Arizona State alumnus makes his home in the Phoenix suburb of Paradise Valley. Pitching for the Diamondbacks, Leake thought, would be the best place for him as he hit free agency for the first time in his career.

When he was not able to come to a contract agreement in Arizona, however, Leake instead signed a five-year deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. On Saturday, he showed the Diamondbacks what might have been.

Pitching against Arizona for the first time this season, Leake won his third consecutive start by allowing just four hits over seven shutout innings and the Cardinals got home runs from Jedd Gyorko, Matt Adams and Yadier Molina in a 6-2 victory.

"It's always nice to kind of I guess stick it to a team that it didn't work out with," Leake said. "At the end of the day it's still another opponent and another team that you have to get through. "

There actually were moments last November and December when Leake thought he would be signing with the Diamondbacks -- until they went in a different direction and signed Zack Greinke and traded for Shelby Miller.

"It was home and would have been a good situation for our family, but I'm happy to be here too," he said.

The Cardinals certainly were happy to have him on Saturday, when he won his first game at home after going 0-2 with two no-decisions and a 5.76 ERA in his first four starts at Busch Stadium.

He was staked to a 2-0 lead in the second inning on Gyorko's fifth homer of the year, and protected that lead until Adams made it a 3-0 game with his fourth homer in the sixth.

Leake had just three strikeouts, but recorded 14 of his 21 outs on groundballs.

"I was trying to pound the ball into the zone and get productive outs," Leake said. "I think we accomplished that today. I'm sure there's a correlation with attacking the strike zone and keeping the defense a little more in the game. Earlier outs are probably better too so the defense stays a little more alert."

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said that his defense is going to be a key for Leake going forward because he is probably not going to be a big strikeout pitcher.

"We needed Mike today," said Matheny, who had seen his last two starters work just four and five innings. "He did a great job right from the start. He had everything he was looking for. Mike is going to need to trust his defense to make plays behind him."

The only real threat against Leake came in the fifth, when Arizona got two of its hits but saw pitcher Robbie Ray hit into a force out to end the inning.

"Same old, same old from him," the Diamondbacks' Rickie Weeks said of Leake. "Back door sinkers, cutters, he kept the ball down. Obviously, we hit the ball pretty good I thought, but it was right at people on the ground. Obviously, it's tough to get runs on the board when you keep pounding balls in the ground."

After Leake left the game, Molina's two-run homer -- his first of the season and first in 233 at-bats dating back to Aug. 19 of last year -- made it a 5-0 game, and Gyorko drove in his third run of the game with a single to cap the three-run seventh.

The Diamondbacks mounted a rally in the ninth, against closer Trevor Rosenthal, who was pitching in the non-save situation because he needed the work. Weeks' two-run homer cut the lead to 6-2 and Arizona ended up loading the bases, bringing the tying run to the plate, before Jean Segura struck out to end the game.

"We got after the closer, we got him up in the 30s pitch-wise and that's good for tomorrow," Arizona manager Chip Hale said. "Hopefully it will translate into a good start tomorrow, but we have to be ready to go."

They won't have to worry about facing Leake, who posted a 6.03 ERA through his first six starts, but has now allowed a combined two runs in his last three starts, covering 21 innings, allowing just three walks.

"I was making it hard on us for the first few outings just because I wasn't consistently hitting my spot," Leake said. "It was hard to think what the next pitch is going to be when you are throwing balls."

Now that he is throwing strikes more consistently, however, Leake is beginning to feel at home with the Cardinals.

"I definitely feel in place here," he said.

NOTES: Saturday would have been RHP Rubby De La Rosa's normal day to start for the Diamondbacks, but with two days off this week, the team elected to skip that start to give him extra rest. ... C Wellington Castillo was back in the Arizona lineup after getting Friday night off. ... SS Ruben Tejada's relief appearance for the Cardinals on Friday night marked the first time in team history that a position player allowed two home runs in a relief appearance. It his was first professional appearance as a pitcher. ... The Cardinals' top prospect, RHP Alex Reyes, completed a 50-game suspension for testing positive for marijuana on Saturday and will make his season debut for Triple-A Memphis on Sunday.