Latest gem from Gray slips just out of Cards' reach

ST. LOUIS -- On a night when the margin for error was almost microscopically small for the slumping Cardinals, Sonny Gray suffered one of his most tough-luck losses of the season because of what the right-handed pitcher called “just a weird play.”

How frustrating of a night was it for Gray and the Cardinals? Gray faced just three batters in five of the seven innings he pitched and allowed only three hits over the solid outing, but he somehow was still saddled with a 2-1 loss to the Pirates on Wednesday at Busch Stadium.

A big reason for the Cardinals’ seventh loss in the past eight games at Busch Stadium was a botched play at first base between Gray and Willson Contreras in a wayward sixth inning.

Gray limited the Pirates to one hit and a walk over the first five scoreless innings of the game, but he wobbled a bit in the sixth when Isiah Kiner-Falefa doubled and Jared Triolo walked to begin the inning. Then, Contreras fielded a tapper off the bat of Spencer Horwitz and initially considered throwing to second, but Triolo purposefully ran in the throwing lane. When the first baseman looked to second, Gray dropped his head as he was running to cover the bag and didn’t see Contreras’ underhanded throw.

“It was just a weird play, and I wouldn’t say anyone would be at fault,” Gray said of the error that was credited to Contreras, who came into Wednesday tied for fourth among all MLB first basemen with six outs above average defensively. “Just a weird play. Overall, I felt good and under control. Even in the sixth, I didn’t feel like it was speeding up on me, and I kept the game slowed down.”

Two batters after the misplay at first base, former Cardinals outfielder Tommy Pham made the Cardinals pay by lacing a grounder back through the middle for a two-run single that essentially won the game.

As well as Gray pitched, Pirates rookie Bubba Chandler was even better over his four-inning stint out of the bullpen. Pitching in just his second big league game since being promoted, Chandler allowed just one hit and struck out three over four scoreless innings. Chandler, who has not allowed a run in his eight big league innings, earned his first MLB victory by throwing 33 four-seam fastballs that topped out at 100.6 mph and averaged 99.2 mph in velocity. He got eight swings and misses in his four innings of work.

Chandler’s strength lined up perfectly against a Cardinals squad that has struggled to hit fastballs all season. Coming into Wednesday, Lars Nootbaar (.256 batting average and 48 strikeouts), Contreras (.275, 60), Nolan Gorman (.242, 44), Masyn Winn (.256, 42) and Pedro Pagés (.250, 26) have struggled with swinging and missing in at-bats that ended with fastballs. Only Iván Herrera (.307 batting average and 29 strikeouts) and Alec Burleson (.282, 24) have handled heat well this season.

“It was 100 [mph], and if you look at our production against fastballs, it’s not very good, and they kept throwing it,” said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol, whose team didn’t have a hit after the fifth inning on Wednesday.

“Overall, you look at some of the guys in our lineup, that has been their struggles -- production on the fastball. It’s not a secret, and guys continue to ramp that up against us, and we have to figure out a way to combat that and move it forward," Marmol said. "But [Chandler] has a live arm with good secondary stuff, and he did well against us. His stuff was good, but our overall production collectively as a club against fastballs needs to improve.”

Gray’s production was good enough to win on most nights, but not on Wednesday, when the Cardinals fell to the rebuilding Pirates for a seventh time in 12 meetings this season. The teams will play for the final time on Thursday, with the Pirates having already locked up a win of the season series. It is the second time in three years that the Cards have lost the season series to the Pirates, a squad that they have dominated over the past two decades.

Even after allowing two runs in the sixth inning, Gray came back out for the seventh and retired the Pirates in order. He struck out two of the final three batters he faced, including a perfectly placed 93 mph sinker on the outside corner to fan Triolo on his final pitch of the night.

“If I had still been worried about that [sixth-inning misplay], I give up four or five runs and that inning gets completely away from us,” Gray said. “You go out there and be a professional and you move onto the next pitch.

“We just came up short, and that’s a tough feeling.”