ST. LOUIS -- With the clock winding down to Wednesday’s 3 p.m. CT Trade Deadline, the Cardinals found a place for infielder Jedd Gyorko with the Dodgers.

When 3 p.m. passed, that was it.

The Cardinals, who had insisted they were looking to improve their roster with an acquisition or two before the only Trade Deadline this year, did not make a deal that added to their Major League roster.

There was the Minor League trade for left-hander Zac Rosscup, who will join Triple-A Memphis, for cash considerations. The Cardinals claimed left-hander Adalberto Mejía off waivers to add to the big league bullpen. And in exchange for Gyorko, they received Tony Cingrani, a left-hander who is out for the season and a free agent after next season, as well as a young prospect in Jeffry Abreu.

• Cards deal Gyorko to LA for Cingrani, prospect

“That was what we were able to do,” president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said. “Explored starting pitching, really the first and foremost of what we were looking for, and then also looking at the relief market. But from people’s standpoints, we just weren’t matching up. We didn’t get what we hoped.

“We still like our team, we’re still excited about our team, and we do think we’re getting healthy at the right time and hopefully this club will continue playing the way it is and it’ll be good enough.”

The Cardinals entered Wednesday in first place in the National League Central, looking for their first postseason appearance since 2015.

Winning 13 of the 18 games out of the All-Star break gave the front office clear direction as the Trade Deadline approached -- the Cardinals needed to be buyers, needed to improve the club with an addition or two. And there were clear improvements they wanted to make in their rotation and bullpen.

With two months to go, the Cardinals will find out whether the roster they had before the Deadline is strong enough and deep enough to make it to October.

“Every year, a lot has to go right,” Mozeliak said. “You could make a trade for someone, like we did with [Mark DeRosa in 2009], and he gets hurt within a week and a half. You never know. But I do think from an internal standpoint, you hope that people can step it up.”

This isn’t to say the front office didn’t attempt to make something happen. The Cardinals cast a wide net for starters -- for example, Mets right-hander Zack Wheeler -- but didn’t want to part with the players teams were asking for, like Cardinals Nos. 1-2 prospects Nolan Gorman and Dylan Carlson or Major League players.

Wheeler -- who will be a free agent after this season -- stayed put, along with teammate Noah Syndergaard, the Rangers’ Mike Minor and the D-backs’ Robbie Ray, proving that there were other buyers balking at the asking price for top starting pitchers. And the Cardinals couldn’t part with a haul like the Astros gave up to get Zack Greinke, either, especially with St. Louis' farm system thinner than recent years -- Gorman and Carlson are the Cardinals prospects listed on MLB Pipeline's Top 100.

“Over the last three months, we’ve had struggles with our rotation, and that’s why we were trying to find an upgrade for them,” Mozeliak said. “But just because we identify someone who we think is going to help us doesn’t mean that they’re going to do a deal with us.

"Ultimately, we did not want to go into this trading deadline feeling like we were going to trade a Dylan Carlson or a Gorman, especially for a rental. We were trying to find deals where we would avoid doing that or try to find something that would have a longer-lasting impact.”

Let’s make a deal ... within reason

Mozeliak said he understood irritation with not making a move, and he expressed the frustration he had when the Trade Deadline passed with no deals in place. But he emphasized the Cardinals’ approach.

“We’re not going to do an irrational deal just to say we did one,” Mozeliak said. “What if we had done something and then it had been bad? The object of this is to try to make successful and smart deals. We just didn’t feel we were at a point where we could do that. We weren’t just going to do it to say we did it. ...

“Over the last week, we’ve been working tirelessly to try to do something. It’s always when you have deadlines and you don’t come up with something, people aren’t happy. I can’t come up with an excuse that’s going to make that go away, but I hope people realize that we’re still excited about our club, we still think that we can win where we stand.

"It’s tough, new deadlines change how you think about things. There’s no August trades now, so we were really trying to push for something right away and didn’t get there.”

What comes next?

As for where the Cardinals' rotation stands now, Michael Wacha will slot into the fifth spot on Monday against the Dodgers, as Daniel Ponce de Leon was optioned to Triple-A Memphis on Wednesday to make room for Mejia on the 25-man roster.

The Cardinals are confident that first four in the rotation they have with Adam Wainwright, Miles Mikolas, Jack Flaherty and Dakota Hudson will be able to pitch the innings needed for the rest of the season and into the postseason, and the bullpen -- which has been overworked lately -- will be able to back the rotation up with the addition of Mejia.

“We feel comfortable that our front four guys have pitched quite well actually over the last several months,” general manager Michael Girsch said. “We’ve had a little bit of a tough stretch here, and we expect Wacha to step into the fifth spot and pitch like he has in the past. And we feel good about our bullpen. Our bullpen has been very effective and has been pretty deep.

"We’re comfortable with the team we have and that we can win the division. Obviously, we were looking for upgrades if we could get them. We were aware that upgrades could help. It just didn’t work out.”