The Texas Rangers’ five-game winning streak came to an end on Wednesday night with a 5-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

There were multiple reasons why the Rangers fell short, let’s review them:

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In their attempt to sweep the Cardinals, the Rangers gave the starting nod to MacKenzie Gore, marking his 13th of the season.

It did not take long for the Cardinals to jump on Gore, and it ended up leading to a losing decision to make him 4-5 on the season.

After giving up a leadoff walk in the first inning, the Rangers’ defense was able to secure two outs behind Gore. However, after allowing another walk, he gave up an RBI single that gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

In the bottom of the third inning, Gore gave up a single and a walk before allowing a two-RBI double to Alec Burleson to make it a 3-1 game. Gore and the defense were eventually able to get out of the inning, but in the bottom of the fifth, an RBI triple off the bat of Thomas Saggese ended Gore’s night.

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By the end of his evening, Gore had gone 4.2 innings and thrown 100 pitches, which resulted in nine hits, four earned runs and three walks while striking out five batters. Through 13 starts, he now holds a 4.23 ERA.

Despite tying the game at 1-1 in the third inning thanks to a Josh Jung RBi single, the Rangers’ offense was simply not as productive as their opponent’s.

After Jung’s RBI single, Texas could not keep pace with the Cardinals’ effective scoring, which saw them notch two runs in the third, one run in the fifth and one run in the sixth to take a 5-1 lead heading into the sixth inning. Heading into the seventh, the Rangers only had three hits.

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It looked as if Texas was mounting a rally in the seventh when a double by Justin Foscue and a walk to Kyle Higashioka set up a two-RBI triple by Joc Pederson to make it a 5-3 game. However, the Rangers produced just one hit the rest of the way.

By the end of the game, the Cardinals had 11 hits in 35 at-bats. Conversely the Rangers had only six hits in 33 at-bats. Texas will now have Thursday off before beginning a three-game series at home against the Cleveland Guardians.

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