PHOENIX -- Things unraveled quickly for Dustin May, and the offense didn’t have an answer for D-backs right-hander Brandon Pfaadt on Saturday as the Cardinals fell 5-3 at Chase Field.
The Cards trailed 1-0 early after May allowed three singles in the second inning, but he had minimized the damage. An inning later, May had Gabriel Moreno down 0-2 with two outs and Ketel Marte on third base when a breaking ball got away from catcher Pedro Pagés for a wild pitch.
The ball didn’t linger far, but Marte didn’t hesitate to break for home. May was late to cover and the Cards were down 2-0. Moreno singled on the next pitch, Max Kepler drew a four-pitch walk and Nolan Arenado cleared the bases with a double on the first pitch to make it 4-0.
The game had gotten away from May in the span of six pitches, and the 28-year-old was quick to take accountability postgame.
“The wild pitch and me not covering, that’s just me being lazy,” May said. “No excuse for that. I have to be more aware.”
He did manage to complete five innings for the first time since he shut out the Padres on June 15, but the start continued a stretch of struggles since that gem, and this was a day when the right-hander needed some support from the Cardinals’ bats.
Unfortunately, St. Louis didn’t break through until the sixth inning. Jordan Walker put the Cards on the board with an RBI single, extending his on-base streak to 20 games, and they tacked on another run after knocking Pfaadt from the game with one out and the bases loaded, but the rally they needed ended there.
“I felt like the guys competed well when you look at all nine innings,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “There were some at-bats that didn’t go our way, but I felt the guys fought hard.”
The Cards had another chance to claw back in the seventh after a José Fermín walk and JJ Wetherholt single, but the inning ended when the D-backs summoned Brandyn Garcia for a left-on-left matchup against Alec Burleson. Burleson hit one on the screws, but it was right at right fielder Corbin Carroll for the third out.
“That’s been my whole year, really, against lefties,” Burleson said. “I feel like I hit the ball hard, take good swings, they just hit the wrong hands.
“The positive is it was a good swing and [Garcia] is really tough, so you take that away from it, but in the moment it is pretty frustrating.”
Jimmy Crooks launched a solo home run over the Chase Field pool in right-center off Paul Sewald in the ninth. In the end, it was too little, too late for the Cards to erase May’s struggles, but there was a silver lining in St. Louis forcing Arizona to use its closer in a game it once led 5-0.
“I didn’t really feel it off the bat, which meant I got it in the nitro zone,” Crooks said. “I haven’t gotten to it in a long time, so it was good to feel that rhythm I had earlier in the year.”
May’s first season in St. Louis has been one of highs and lows. He opened the year with back-to-back clunkers, but then reeled off a 2.54 ERA over the 12 starts that followed, including taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning of a game he lost in Milwaukee and culminating with the shutout against the Padres at Busch Stadium.
Since then, however, he’s posted a 9.92 ERA over his past five starts and he’s walked four batters in each of his last two.
“I need to figure something out, because I have to stop walking guys,” May said, “plain and simple. … I’ve got to be better. We’re in the big leagues for a reason. We have to be adaptable and overcome challenges.”
Marmol has lauded his young club for its ability to battle through adversity and not let one game’s struggles leak into the next. That will be put to the test on Sunday when the Cardinals try to wrap up a second-half-opening series win in the desert.