'That's baseball': Bad luck outweighs Willson's 2-HR night

ST. LOUIS -- In a moment that encapsulated just how bad the slumping Cardinals’ luck is running these days, left-hander Jordan Montgomery perfectly buried a curveball below the strike zone on a 2-2 pitch in Tuesday’s fourth inning, one he hoped Arizona’s Nick Ahmed would chase for a much-needed strikeout.

However, the D-backs shortstop didn’t seem to mind that the sweeping curveball bounced well in front of the plate, and he golfed it into shallow left field to plate two runs that broke a tie.

Yep, it was that kind of night again for a befuddled Cardinals team that fell, 8-7, to the D-backs on Tuesday night and lost for a fourth time in the past six games. Oddly, a St. Louis squad troubled by woeful starting pitching and spotty hitting lost for an eighth time in 12 games at Busch Stadium.

On Tuesday, the Cardinals once again left the bases loaded, botched a defensive rundown and saw another starter come unglued in a lopsided inning for the opposition.

However, it was the bounced-ball double by Ahmed that had the Cardinals wondering on this night if they were being cursed by the baseball gods.

“To be honest, I don't know how he hit that,” said catcher Willson Contreras, who helped his team get within a run by smashing his first two home runs in a Cardinals uniform. “He was probably looking down [in the zone], but that was way down and that was just luck.

"That speaks [for] itself -- we're not getting the good luck that we should. We have to keep working, keep making adjustments, keep making better pitches, and keep working as a team.”

Prior to Tuesday, Montgomery had been the one constant in a rotation regularly shelled early in the season. He had pitched well in each of his first three outings, compiling a 2-1 record and a 2.45 ERA.

By the fifth inning, Montgomery was standing behind the front bench of the dugout with a towel around his neck, his hat discarded, his hair disheveled and the hand of fellow pitcher Jack Flaherty patting him on the back in a consoling manner.

Cardinals starting pitchers Miles Mikolas, Jake Woodford, Steven Matz and Flaherty gathered around and tried comforting Montgomery after he had yielded six runs and seven hits -- all in the fourth inning alone.

Like Contreras, Montgomery chalked up the double off the bounced ball to pure bad luck.

“I mean, I can't throw a better [curveball] than that,” Montgomery said following his shortest outing of the season. “It might have bounced in front of the plate, but that’s just kind of the way the whole night went. That's baseball for you, and it’s going to be like that some days.”

A Cardinals team that has struggled to hit with runners in scoring position -- particularly with the bases loaded -- missed out on a chance to break the game open in the second inning. Tommy Edman, the hero of Sunday’s walk-off win when he singled with the bases loaded, popped out in foul territory.

Then, after Lars Nootbaar reached via an RBI infield single -- a close call overturned by video replay -- Paul Goldschmidt, who homered in the first inning, whiffed to end the rally.

It left the Cardinals at 21st in baseball when hitting with runners in scoring position (.242), 19th with runners in scoring position and two outs (.224) and 25th with the bases loaded (.150).

Montgomery limited the D-backs to one run through the first three innings but was hit hard in the fourth. The first three hits of the inning left the bat at 102.7 mph, 111.8 mph and 103.5 mph. Then, after Contreras and third baseman Taylor Motter were unable to execute a rundown for the first out, Ahmed came to the plate with the bases loaded.

With the count at 2-2, Montgomery kept the curveball down, but Ahmed flicked the head of the bat at the ball and whipped it into left field to plate two runs.

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol called the bounced-ball double “not ideal.” What also wasn’t ideal was the Cardinals falling in an 8-2 hole, but Marmol did like the way his team responded to that adversity by getting the potential tying run to the plate in the ninth inning.

“[Goldschmidt] comes up and says, ‘This is frustrating, but it’s bound to turn at some point,’ and that’s how our clubhouse feels,” Marmol said. “Is it frustrating? Absolutely, and no one’s happy about it. But, at some point, it will turn, and our clubhouse is optimistic as to that happening sooner rather than later.”