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-five NL 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. Mulder was with the Oakland Athletics when they squandered a 2-0 lead against the Red Sox in 2003.

“We held home-field advantage,” 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 NL 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.

St. Louis' Mark Mulder delivers against San Diego. Mulder allowed one run in 62â3 innings, and the Cardinals defeated the Padres, 6-2, Thursday in St. Louis.

“We’ve put pressure on that team, we just haven’t come up with the big hit yet,” 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 gave up seven earned runs over 52â3 innings in two starts after the Cardinals clinched the NL 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 induced 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. “The next pitch you can get a double play. That’s part of my game in a way.”

Mulder kept his arm loose between innings by retreating to the clubhouse and applying a heat pack. After the game he said it looked as if he had a “golf ball” on his biceps but said it was just a bruise.

He blamed himself for not fielding Randa’s liner, or at least getting out of the way.

“Randa has raked me all season,” Mulder said. “So I should have been ready for it.”

The Cardinals’ first four runs came on balls that didn’t leave the infield – or in one case, even the catcher’s glove. Eckstein had a run-scoring groundout and a squeeze bunt, Yadier Molina had an RBI grounder and Albert Pujols drew a bases-loaded walk to finish Pedro Astacio after four innings.

As in Tuesday’s opener, when the Cardinals took an eight-run lead behind Chris Carpenter before the Padres rallied in an 8-5 loss, it got a little closer at the end.

A double by Khalil Greene, a single by Randa and Xavier Nady’s run-scoring single cut the deficit to 4-1.

Reggie Sanders, who drove in an NLDS-record six runs in Game 1, hit a two-run double off Rudy Seanez in the seventh that made it 6-1.