Let’s face it, the Cardinals needed extensive help fighting through their offensive funk. Nagging injuries and persistent individual slumps depleted their so-called attack.

Fortunately the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks arrived Monday in a very giving mood.

Somehow the Cards prevailed 6-5 at Busch Stadium. They rallied improbably from a 5-3 deficit in the bottom of the ninth after enduring through nearly three hours of total frustration.

In the end, the home team celebrated on the field, mobbing Skip Schumaker for hitting a routine grounder to first base and Adam Wainwright for scoring the winning run after reaching base on a botched bunt.

“We will take it,” Wainwright said afterward.

“It’s crazy. Can’t explain it,” Chris Carpenter said.

“That’s just baseball,” manager Tony La Russa said. “Just a weird night.”

For most of it, Cards fans shared the utter exasperation of their team. After losing two of three games in Kansas City, the Cards seemed determined to continue that trend against the D-Backs – an also-ran  that sat 16 games under .500 with the worst earned-run average in the majors.

You know your major league baseball team is in a serious funk when . . .

A pair of its key run-producers, Ryan Ludwick and David Freese, are sidelined at the same time by nagging leg injuries.

Its starting pitcher, Carpenter, absorbs a line drive off the forearm right off the top and has to plow ahead in pain.

It stakes that intrepid pitcher to a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning -- then doesn’t come close to building on that margin. Its offense generates one of those two runs on a wild pitch.

Its clean-up hitter, Matt Holliday, pops up AGAIN to strand a runner in scoring position.

The opponent moves ahead 3-2 when its pitcher crushes the go-ahead homer. The pitcher who launches that blast, Dan Haren, departed your team in one of the franchise’s most lamentable deals.

The opponent pushes its lead to 5-2 in the eighth inning on a two-out fly ball that should have been caught. That third out ends up in the right field bullpen inistead after the right fielder, normally reliable Randy Winn, goes back to the warning track, leaps up and deflects the ball over the fence for a two-run homer.

That mishap becomes all the more painful when the home team strings together three consecutive hits in the bottom of the eighth to score what would have been the tying run.

Then the team’s offensive catalyst, Albert Pujols, is called out on strikes with runners at first and second base and nobody out.  That third strike is borderline, true, but it is too close to take in such a critical situation.

Its clean-up hitter, Holliday, then whiffs to strand those runners at first and second base – capping his ugly 0-for-4 night.

Its No. 5 hitter, Colby Rasmus, kills off this would-be rally by lifting a harmless fly ball to center field – capping his 0-for-4 night.

Given all that, fans expected the worst in the bottom of the ninth. But that’s when the fun began.

Yadier Molina stroked a single into left field, after La Russa got ejected for arguing balls and strikes. Did his timely protest take Haren out of his rhythm? Perhaps, because Brendan Ryan followed by dumping a single into right field.

Arizona went to its terrible bullpen to summon closer Aaron Heilman. La Russa sent Wainwight into the game to bunt, since his bench was short with both Ludwick and Freese hurt. He also sent Jaime Garcia in to pinch-run for Molina.

Wainright bunted too hard, but Heilman made a horrific throw trying to get the forceout at third. Garcia slid into third, popped up and scored. Speed kills!

With runners on second and third and nobody out, Arizona pulled its infield in. Winn grounded out to short, stranding the runners. With one out, Ryan got more daring at third base – coming WAY down the line on each Heilman pitch, since the oblivious D-Backs weren’t doing anything to hold him.

When Schumaker grounded a ball right at first baseman Adam LaRoche, Ryan took off. LaRoche threw home, wildly, allowing Ryan AND Wainwright to score. Ballgame.

“You don’t see that very often,” Carpenter said.

“We got some breaks,” La Russa said.

“Nice win,” Carpenter said. “Now let’s see how we come out tomorrow.”

Perhaps the Cardinals will report to work a bit more relaxed. Perhaps Molina and Ryan, two players who struggled terribly on the road trip, will build on their breakout game.

And perhaps the accommodating Diamondbacks will lend them another hand when they need it most.