SAN DIEGO -- The Cardinals weren’t dancing on the rooftop upon snapping their longest losing streak of the season, but their backup catcher nearly put a baseball there to make it happen.

Making his first start in 11 days, Matt Wieters delivered the decisive blow in the 11th inning to lift the Cards to a 5-3 victory over the Padres. That ended St. Louis’ five-game skid and allowed it to avoid a three-game sweep at Petco Park.

Wieters crushed a 1-2 slider from left-hander Brad Wieck onto the rarely reached third level of seats on the Western Metal Supply Co. Building down the left-field line for a tiebreaking two-run home run. Wieters stood nearly motionless as he watched the towering 390-foot shot -- not in admiration, but because he wasn’t sure whether it would stay fair.

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“It’s good to keep it fair and good to get a win,” Wieters said. “As long as they go out, I don’t care how far.”

Indeed, the Cardinals are long past the point of caring about style points. After scoring just three runs in the first two games of the series and averaging two runs a game during the losing streak, the Cards spoke about finding any way possible to generate offense.

They put that into practice on Sunday.

Not only did they get the big hit from an unlikely source in Wieters -- the switch-hitter was hitless in 19 at-bats against lefties this year before his homer -- but they got him to the plate by hustling out an infield hit with two outs. Kolten Wong hit a dribbler to the grass near the first-base dirt cutout and darted to the bag before either Wieck or first baseman Eric Hosmer could get there.

St. Louis also got a two-run single in the fifth inning from another backup, Yairo Muñoz, who started at third base. Paul Goldschmidt scored the tying run in the eighth. He reached on an infield single to third and moved to second on Manny Machado’s throwing error. Tyler O’Neill then punched an opposite-field base hit, and Goldschmidt scored when right fielder Franmil Reyes bobbled the ball for San Diego’s second error of the inning.

“Taking advantage of mistakes, having a good approach, long at-bats -- I thought we hit some good balls today,” said shortstop Paul DeJong, who was named to the National League All-Star team during the game. “For us, it’s just about staying in the game the whole time, even when we’re down early. It’s just about staying the course.”

“What feels good about it besides the end result was that was a total team effort,” added Cardinals manager Mike Shildt. “That’s the definition of team right there -- hard-fought, embracing competition. And we got it done, brought it home.”

Though the Cardinals were in a 3-0 hole after five innings, starter Miles Mikolas actually delivered a quality start: six innings, three runs, eight hits, no walks, four strikeouts. He has a 2.12 ERA over his past three starts.

Mikolas surrendered a two-run homer by Machado on a first-pitch fastball in the first inning -- “one bad pitch,” the right-hander said -- and Fernando Tatis Jr. essentially stole a run in the fifth by scoring from first base on Hosmer’s single to right-center.

Mikolas was backed by six relievers who combined for five shutout innings. Carlos Martínez struck out four over 2 2/3 innings while throwing 41 pitches.

All of which set up Wieters’ moment. A four-time All-Star who handled left-handers regularly in the past, he now sees them rarely. It’s a vicious cycle -- seeing lefties sporadically makes them tougher to hit, so then he faces them even less often.

Wieters was well aware of his hitless status vs. lefties when he stepped in against Wieck.

“It’s easy when you don’t have any [hits],” he said. “It was a grind earlier batting right-handed for numerous reasons. It was good to get that one. The last four or five at-bats have been better. I had a stretch of six or seven really poor at-bats against lefties. When you’re not seeing a lot of them, that can add up on you.”

Wieters said he had been getting under hittable pitches from left-handers, so he worked to shorten up and be a bit quicker to the ball. He knew his swing was in the right spot when he stayed alive by fouling off a 94.9-mph fastball on a 1-2 count. The pitch was down and away -- out of the strike zone, but too close to leave to home-plate umpire Kerwin Danley’s judgment -- and Wieters made contact to extend the at-bat.

Then came the slider, away but in the strike zone. Wieters jumped on it.

“I was able to get something a little better to hit,” he said. “It was a complete team win, and it was nice to be part of it.”