Nolan Arenado’s bat has heated up over the past couple months. Paul Goldschmidt’s been on fire all year.

Now that the two are hitting at the same time, the St. Louis Cardinals are turning into a tough team to beat.

Arenado had three doubles and a single, Goldschmidt added his 30th homer of the season and the Cardinals beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-1 on Friday night. It was their fifth straight win and 14th of the past 17.

While Arenado and Goldschmidt provided the bulk of the offense, right-hander Miles Mikolas threw eight dominant innings.

Mikolas (10-9) gave up one hit through seven innings before the D-backs scratched across a run in the eighth. The right-hander allowed two hits, walked one, hit one batter and struck out four.

Veteran catcher Yadier Molina added a season-high three hits and scored a run.

Goldschmidt also had three hits. He reached the 30-homer mark for the seventh time in his career, four of them for Arizona before being traded to the Cardinals.

St. Louis pushed its NL Central lead to four games over Milwaukee.

Goldschmidt slugged his solo homer in the first inning, connecting on a full-count pitch from rookie Tommy Henry for a drive that landed deep in the left field seats. The first baseman got plenty of applause, even on the road. He remains a crowd favorite in Arizona, where he was a six-time All-Star from 2011 to 2018.

The game stayed tight until the seventh, when the Cardinals scored four times to increase their lead to 5-0. Arenado’s double into the left-center gap brought home two runs while Goldschmidt added an RBI single on a sharp grounder that deflected off D-backs reliever Kevin Ginkel.

Henry (2-2) gave up one run on six hits through 5 1/3 innings. He walked one and struck out seven, continuing a string of solid starts since being called up from Triple-A in July.

UP NEXT

The teams meet again on tonight. The D-backs will throw LHP Madison Bumgarner (6-12, 4.37 ERA) against Cardinals RHP Dakota Hudson (6-6, 4.17).