SEATTLE -- Michael McGreevy just seems to have a way of escaping damage.
Consider that the Cardinals right-hander surrendered a scorching line drive up the middle to Mariners slugger Julio Rodríguez in the sixth inning of St. Louis’ 4-2 loss to Seattle in 13 innings on Wednesday night that cemented a series sweep.
The 115.4 mph laser blurred right by his body and landed in the glove of second baseman José Fermín.
It’s that type of elusion that has allowed McGreevy to put together an effective, bend-don’t-break season for a St. Louis team that has stayed in the Wild Card conversation into September.
It didn’t work out for the Cardinals on Wednesday, because the Mariners once again did enough on the mound to hold the St. Louis bats at bay in key situations and won it on a Leo Rivas walk-off two-run home run against reliever Ryan Fernandez, but McGreevy turned in another stellar start, at least as far as run prevention goes.
He lasted six innings, gave up one run on five hits, and struck out four without walking a batter. All five of the hits he gave up were singles, and the only run he surrendered came in the second inning when Josh Naylor reached on an infield hit, moved to second on a Jorge Polanco single, and scored two batters later on a sacrifice fly by Dominic Canzone.
Otherwise, he kept making big pitches when he had to, like in the third inning with runners on first and second with two out, getting Naylor to fly out to center field. After that, he retired nine of his last 10 batters.
“I thought my stuff was really good,” McGreevy said. “I felt really good going into the outing. It's always a nice challenge to bounce back. It was a point of emphasis we made this last month, to … put up a zero in the first inning. So I was happy to do that.”
McGreevy, 25, stuck in the Cardinals rotation in late July and has been a bright spot of consistency without flash. He finished August with a 4-0 record and a 3.50 ERA in six starts, all of which featured him throwing exactly six innings -- the longest such streak by a Cardinals pitcher in 2025. He took a step back in his last outing, logging a season-low four innings while allowing six runs on nine hits in an 8-2 loss to the Giants.
But he found his form again on Wednesday.
“Coming off a rough one in his last one [and facing] a really, really good team, that’s just part of the growth that you're looking for, “ Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “Those are the adjustments we're talking about. He did a nice job with that.”
Unfortunately for McGreevy, the Cardinals were stymied themselves on the offensive side.
Things got exciting quickly when Iván Herrera took Mariners starter Logan Gilbert deep in the first inning, giving St. Louis a 1-0 lead. But the Cardinals couldn’t take advantage of numerous other chances.
In the second inning, the Cardinals loaded the bases, but Gilbert fanned Fermín, Nathan Church and Lars Nootbaar in succession to wiggle out of that threat.
In the fourth, St. Louis got runners on second and third with one out, but Church struck out again and Nootbaar flied out to right.
In the sixth, Saggese’s leadoff double went for naught when reliever Carlos Vargas punched out Pedro Pagés and got Fermín and Church on groundouts.
And in the top of the 10th, Herrera was on second base as the automatic runner when Alec Burleson lined out to deep right field. Herrera broke too early from the base and left himself unable to tag and get to third. He then misjudged Willson Contreras’ short fly to center and broke, getting easily doubled off second for a threat-removing double play.
“I [screwed] up,” Herrera said. “And I kept thinking about that, and just I [screwed] up again. It’s part of the game. I’ll just try to be better.”
One bright spot for the Cardinals was the performance of reliever Riley O'Brien, who was born in Seattle, grew up in nearby Shoreline, Wash., and pitched for two seasons at nearby Everett Community College before briefly pitching for the Mariners in 2022.
He entered the game in the 10th inning in front of what he estimated as a group of at least 30 family members and friends, and got out of a bases-loaded jam by striking out Rodríguez and Naylor.
The Cardinals took the lead in the top of the 11th on a Saggese RBI single, but the Mariners answered when Polanco hit an RBI double. Undaunted, O’Brien induced a 1-2-3 double play from Cole Young to leave the game tied.
“It was pretty fun,” O’Brien said. “It felt good to just be in competition mode and just doing everything I can to get the hitters out.
“I feel like being in those situations just kind of brings out the best in me, and felt like I was able to rise to the occasion today.”