ST. LOUIS — On Monday, the San Diego Padres began a weeklong road trip that will end a marathon run of games.

They got almost everything they needed in a 7-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Foremost, fill-in starter Randy Vásquez gave them six innings, when at one point it did not appear at all likely he would.

And the offense built a big enough lead that it seemed there would be no need to go too deep in the bullpen.

The Padres did end up using their two highest-leverage arms for an inning apiece at the end. It would have been a bonus to avoid employing Tanner Scott and Robert Suarez after they pitched Sunday in a game in which the bullpen covered 5 1/3 innings and with seven games remaining at the end of an 18-game run without a day off.

But victories are at a premium now, more than ever, and the Padres have just 29 games remaining and are looking to secure a playoff spot.

And with the calendar working against the teams chasing them, the Padres will take victories however they come.

It came fairly routinely Monday, with a few tense moments sprinkled in.

Manny Machado’s first-inning home run produced two of his three RBIs and Jackson Merrill drove in three runs with a pair of singles, as the Padres gained a half-game on the idle Diamondbacks in the race for the National League’s top wild-card spot.

Vásquez, pitching in the spot that until last week belonged to Matt Waldron and in the next week or so will likely belong to Yu Darvish, scuffled through the middle portion of his six innings before closing with seven consecutive outs.

All the Padres’ runs were charged to Cardinals starter Kyle Gibson, who had held them to two runs over seven innings on April 1 at Petco Park. The veteran right-hander departed with one out and a runner on second in the fifth inning, having thrown just 49 strikes among his 90 pitches.

The Padres went up 2-0 in the first inning, when Jake Cronenworth took a cutter in the elbow pad and Machado took a cutter deep — 420 feet to the grass berm beyond center field.

The Cardinals got to 2-1 in the second on Brendan Donovan’s triple and a single by Paul Goldschmidt, the erstwhile slugger who took a .226 batting average into the game and was batting seventh.

Luis Arraez led off the third with a single, and walks by Jurickson Profar and Machado loaded the bases with one out before Merrill drove in a run with a single.

Vasquez walked Ivan Herrera to start the bottom of the fourth, and a single by Donovan put runners on the corners with no outs. A sacrifice fly by Matt Carpenter got the Cardinals to 4-2 and got Adrián Morejón up in the bullpen.

But after allowing a single to No.9 hitter Victor Scott II, Vásquez ended the inning on a fly ball by Masyn Winn and went on to retire the Cardinals in order in the fifth and sixth.

Machado added to their RBI totals, as the Padres scored three more runs in the fifth.

A second walk by Profar and a single by Cronenworth was followed by a Machado double, a sacrifice fly by Xander Bogaerts and — after left-hander Matthew Liberatore replaced Gibson — a single by Merrill.

Adrián Morejón allowed a run in the seventh inning and took 28 pitches doing so. That left manager Mike Shildt to ask an inning of Scott, who worked a scoreless eighth, and Suarez, who allowed a run in the ninth.

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