By Jeremy Harness

AP photo: San Francisco Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto gets a handshake from catcher Buster Posey after the Giants victory over the St Louis Cardinals at AT&T Park on Thursday night

SAN FRANCISCO – After getting swept by the San Diego Padres, a team that they handled quite flawlessly in the first half but cannot figure out a way to beat in the second half, the Giants needed a jolt of energy to get things back on the right track.

They got it Thursday night in the form of the St. Louis Cardinals, a team with which they have had as long a history as any team in the National League, particularly in the past seven years.

It also helps when your starter had given up two runs or less in four of his previous five starts. Johnny Cueto used that momentum to his advantage on Thursday in leading the Giants to a 6-2 win at AT&T Park, a win that kept them on top of the National League West wild-card standings.

The division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers fell to Arizona on Thursday, which means that the Giants now trail by four games in that race.

With all of the problems that the bullpen has experienced, Cueto eliminated that worry, at least for one night. He went the distance while giving up only a pair of runs on five hits, walking only one batter and striking out seven.

“He really got better as he went,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “They chipped away at him, but he settled down. I think he smelled (the complete game), and he turned it up.

“He pitched very efficiently, too. He threw strikes and used his defense. He just pitched a beautiful game.”

The Giants’ offense, which has struggled mightily in the second half of the season as well, went a long way to give Cueto enough cushion to go the full nine.

It started in the opening inning, when Hunter Pence saw a pitch from starter Adam Wainwright that he liked and launched it into the left-field bleachers to give his team a quick 2-0 advantage

In the process, Pence extended his hitting streak to nine games.

However, the Cardinals got to Cueto, scoring a run in both the second and third innings to tie the game. In fact, the damage could have been much worse – the Cardinals had runners on the corners with only one out in the fourth – but Cueto buckled down.

He then got Kolten Wong to pop out to second before striking out Wainwright to keep the score knotted.

Cueto then got a huge dose of redemption at the plate. In his first at-bat, he had failed to get a bunt down with a runner on third with only one out, and the Giants ended that inning with that runner still there.

In the fourth inning, in the very same situation, that all changed. After a pep talk with third-base coach Roberto Kelly, Cueto took a full swing at the first pitch he saw and hit a fly ball into right field, just deep enough to score Brandon Belt and re-gain the lead for the Giants.

Angel Pagan then kept the tide going, quickly following with a single up the middle to bring in Eduardo Nunez to extend that lead to 4-2.

Of course, with the well-documented struggles of the bullpen, no lead is really safe for the Giants these days, particularly with the lead only being two runs. So Denard Span made it a little easier to breathe in the bottom of the seventh, when lined a two-out single off reliever Matt Bowman to score a pair of runs and further extend the lead.

With said bullpen troubles, it was to the absolute delight of the crowd of 41,210 when Cueto took the mound at the start of the ninth inning. That crowd went home with a slightly more jovial mood than was the case the day before after the man with the funky, deliberate delivery retired the Cardinals in order.