George Burley made just the one change from the encouraging performance against Cardiff, with fit-again Rudi Skacel coming in for the suspended Jhon Viafara.
The defence managed to keep a lively Stoke attack at bay, largely thanks to excellent displays from centre backs Baird and Lundekvam, plus a magnificent save from Kelvin Davis to keep out Lee Hendrie's superb curling left footer.
Burley kept with Jermaine Wright at right back who put in a solid display, although he might have been better employed as a midfield enforcer in Viafara's absence with Pele an option at centre back to push Baird to right back.
As it was Saints were largely outmuscled in centre midfield in the first half, with Licka and Idiakez showing good quality on the ball, but up against it to break up Stoke's attacks.
With Skacel ineffective out of position at right midfield, Saints could have done with Nathan Dyer's pace and trickery to light up a scrappy contest. On the left Drew Surman enhanced his reputation with an eye-catching display on the left, forming an excellent partnership with Gareth 'yes, he is really just 17' Bale.
Up front Saint failed to break down a dogged Stoke defence led expertly by the returning Danny Higginbotham, with Rasiak and Jones restricted to half chances and unable to maintain sufficient possession.
On the Cross verdict
After a head-scratching three defeats in a row, we can just be thankful that we managed to grind out an ugly win against a physical Stoke side brought to life by Lee Hendrie's quality on the ball.
This was one of Saints' worst performances of late, as we created few chances and until the goal went in out of the blue and rarely showed the pass and move fluency that we are capable of at our best.
Perhaps it's time to trot out the old cliché about good sides winning when playing badly, but in truth we seem to lose when playing well of late! This could easily have gone either way despite Stoke having few genuine chances and we have to hope that Viafara's return will inject some more life into Saints' play.
One of the plusses was to see Mario Licka battle his way to form with an eye-catching second half that was lit up by his run and strike. He was much improved when pushed forward by George Burley in a performance reminiscent of a certain Anders Svensson, at times magical, at time anonymous.
As it is, we have now fought our way back to ninth and are just three points off from the play-offs again in an exceptionally tight league. At least Cardiff finally lost, leaving us a slightly more palatable 10 points off top. However, after our inconsistent displays we don't look a top two side at the moment as Burley tries to mould 11 new players into a settled team.
Man of the match: Another commanding performance at the back from Chris Baird, who made a series of timely interventions and swept up numerous times at the back. Saints' best defender, no mean feat alongside Claus Lundekvam.
Cameo of the day: After two very public mistakes at home, Kelvin Davis should be praised for a magnificent one-handed save from the impressive Lee Hendrie preventing what looked a certain goal. Denied his moment of glory by the dodgy ref who gave a goal kick. Thankfully even the fumbles came off today.
Lemon of the day: Good job Ricardo Fuller didn't bring his shooting boots today. Hendrie aside, looked Stoke's best chance of a goal with some surging runs with the ball at his feet, only to plant the ball firmly high into the Northam Stand to the delight of the home crowd.