Braced for rigorous stretch, Cardinals escape from losing spiral must begin with starters

MILWAUKEE — When asked late Thursday night what the Cardinals needed from starters like him and the rotation during a rigorous stretch of games that has pinwheeled into their first prolonged losing streak of the season, Sonny Gray was as direct and pointed with his word as he had difficulty being with his pitches.

The Brewers pounced on Gray for five runs in the fifth inning and cruised to a 6-0 victory against the Cardinals on Thursday at American Family Field. In the span of two swings, two pitches, and two batters, Gray allowed four runs – which was more than he had permitted total in the previous 29 2/3 innings. Jackson Churio’s two-run homer was the exclamation point that sent a ball 410 feet, ejected Gray from the game, and launched the Cardinals toward their fifth consecutive loss.

In total, Gray got 13 of those outs.

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To put it as directly and pointedly as him: Not enough.

“It wasn’t good,” Gray said. “I wasn’t good. We weren’t good. We’re not playing go. Just nothing good.”

At the center of the Cardinals’ losing streak is what comes at the beginning of their games – and too often recently isn’t getting them deeper into those games.

The Cardinals braced for a severe test during this stretch with contact-oriented clubs like Kansas City and Toronto bookending a visit to St. Louis by the defending World Series champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Once that nine-game home stand was finished, the Cardinals had their first National League Central series in five weeks with a visit to Milwaukee. To prepare, they first added innings to their bullpen to save some from starters early in the stretch. They promoted rookie Michael McGreevy to tag in and get the rotation an added day off. And they counted on that keeping the starters fresh and healthy.

Productive – that’s been lacking.

“We had an idea this would be the case going in,” Marmol said of the grind. “You try to limit it as much as possible. That’s why we’re turning through the arms the way we have to stay somewhat fresh. But you play a stretch that we’ve been playing with LA, knowing we’re going into Toronto, then these guys (the Brewers) – that’s part of it. Keep your head down.”

Gray (7-2) was the fourth starter to take the loss during the losing streak.

He allowed six runs on eight through 4 1/3 innings, and that’s the shortest start in this stretch. Which has been a contributor to the turbulence. Rather than getting more from the starters following the proactive moves to save them innings, the Cardinals are seeing the rotation regress in the innings its provided. Opposite Clayton Kershaw in the first game of the losing streak, McGreevy pitched six innings. The innings have dipped to five and then 4 1/3.

Over the past five games, the Cardinals’ starters have allowed 40 hits in 26 1/3 innings. They have a 7.18 ERA and only Andre Pallante allowed fewer than four runs – in a no-decision that the Cardinals lost in extra innings.

That contrasts with the starts opponents threw at the Cardinals that not only include a few more outs – four to be direct and pointed – but far fewer runs.

Opposing starters have allowed 20 hits and seven runs in five games.

Not one of them was good as the Brewers’ rookie making his major-league debut Thursday night. Jacob Misiorowski, a Missouri native, threw one of the swiftest pitches of the year at Class AAA against the Cardinals’ top affiliate to strike out Luken Baker a few weeks ago with a 103-mph fastball. Any scouting video did not do justice to the wiry, lithe, and easy mechanics of the 6-foot-7 Misiorowski as he greeted the Cardinals with three consecutive 100-mph pitches to begin his big-league career.

Within two batters of the game, he already reached 100 mph and threw the fastest pitch by a Brewers’ starter since 2008, when such data became consistently available.

He then touched 102 mph a few pitches later.

Misiorowski, who grew up in Grain Valley, Missouri, caused some of the metrics to glitch as his changeup read as a sinker because of its velocity and he at least twice had a cut fastball clocked as a four-seam fastball. He held the Cardinals without a hit through five innings before leaving the game after rolling his ankle three pitches into the sixth inning. The Brewers announced later that he was experiencing cramping in his right calf and quadriceps.

Gray matched him zero for zero in three of the first four innings, and the Cardinals’ veteran pitched out of allowing more trouble in the second with a fortuitous liner to third baseman Nolan Arenado.

He reached the fifth having retired seven consecutive batters but not feeling like he was overwhelming them as he did.

“Even in the first four, I didn’t feel great,” Gray said. “Felt like I was just getting by. Then the fifth happened. You walk the leadoff guy and you get very fortunate to (pick him off) and then have the next guy in an 0-2 count.”

Gray recapped what happened next with a single, single, double, single, and then Chourio’s homer to dead-center field.

“Just unraveled right there,” he said.

The bulk of the damage came on back-to-back pitches as Sal Frelick tagged a 93.3-mph fastball for a two-run single. Chourio followed with his 12th home run of the season – a two-run shot off Gray’s 84.6-mph sweeping slider. Three of the hits and three of the runs came from the bottom three hitters in the Brewers’ lineup. The first six batters of the fifth inning reached base, five scored, and the only out Gray collected was a pickoff before turning the ball and the inning over to rookie Andre Granillo for his major-league debut.

“I wouldn’t say sped up,” catcher Pedro Page said. “It’s part of baseball. Wish we could have gotten ahead on more of those bottom-of-the-lineup hitters. We didn’t execute some pitches early and then we had to go into the zone and give-in, in a sense. I think it was more of the fact that we were just able to get ahead.”

Some of the in-game decisions Marmol has made with the pitchers reflect the concern the Cardinals had for innings going into this stretch.

He stuck with Miles Mikolas for an extra inning in his most recent start to avoid using a reliever and possibly exhausting one of the young arms so that a roster move had to be made. On Thursday, he trusted in his No. 1 starter to navigate his way through the fifth inning just to cover a few more outs so that the bullpen didn’t have to. The dominos start to fall rapidly when a couple of starters fail to cover enough innings to avoid taxing the bullpen – and the losses tend to follow until a stopper emerges.

In hindsight, it may be Granillo who steadied the slide.

He pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings to allow the Cardinals to collect the final 11 outs with two relievers. That keeps the high-leverage pitchers set for the remainder of the weekend series in Milwaukee, and if a game is going to involve them it’s got to begin – directly and pointedly – with the starter.

“I wouldn’t think of it as pressure, to be honest with you,” Marmol said. “Those guys they’re trying to get as deep into every game regardless of what kind of stretch we’re in. So, I don’t think it changes their mentality overall.”

Jacob Misiorowski, a Missouri native and top prospect for Milwaukee, pitched five no-hit innings and blitzed the Cardinals with fastballs in Brewers’ 6-0 victory.

Photos: Cardinals blanked in series opener at Brewers