ST. LOUIS -- Progress for Cardinals left-hander Steven Matz continues to come incrementally, with his quest for his first win in an MLB start in 10 months once again coming up short.

Matz didn’t allow an earned run over 4 2/3 innings in the Cardinals’ 5-0 loss on Friday night, but he still left the mound trailing by a run and an out short of being eligible for his first win of 2023.

Signed to a four-year, $44 million free-agent deal in the fall of 2021, Matz is now 0-5 with a 5.05 ERA in nine starts this season. He’s won just one start -- July 23, 2022, at Cincinnati -- since early May of last year. Even that one victory was marred by a knee injury that Matz sustained while fielding a slow roller up the first-base line.  

“It’s tough because you want to go out and give the team a chance to win, so doing that is good,” said Matz, who pitched around traffic in each of the first four innings. “Going deeper into games, that would change that [chance to notch his first victory]. That’s something I’ve got to be better about doing going forward.”

A night after scoring 16 runs and smashing a franchise record seven homers, the Cardinals were mostly punchless against Tony Gonsolin. They were shut out for the fifth time and their two hits were a season low. Things could have been different had L.A. center fielder James Outman not reached above the wall to rob a potential Paul Goldschmidt home run and if Nolan Arenado’s laser down the left-field line had not fallen inches foul later in the sixth inning.

“I think we’ve all seen enough baseball to know that’s exactly how this game goes,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “That [Goldschmidt] ball gets out, [Nolan] Gorman gets a single and then with Nolan Arenado’s ball down the line to left field that could have made it second and third, but that’s not how the game went.”

Not only did the Cardinals enter having won nine of 11, but they had slugged 27 home runs and averaged 7.7 runs in that spree to get themselves back within striking distance of their NL Central counterparts. However, Gonsolin -- who has not surrendered an earned run on the road all season -- allowed just one Cardinal to reach third base.

Matz, who had pitched better in previous outings against the Tigers and Red Sox where he got no-decisions, matched Gonsolin over the first four innings by keeping the Dodgers off the scoreboard, stranding six runners. The traffic on the basepaths drove Matz’s pitch count over 100 before the end of the fifth inning, but he took solace in being able to work his way out of trouble.

“That’s big for me, to make big pitches with runners on,” said Matz, who allowed six hits -- four of them doubles -- while striking out six. “Those are the most important pitches of the day. I felt confident with my pitches today and I was able to make them when I had to.”

Matz’s fifth inning unraveled when he lost J.D. Martinez, getting ahead 0-2 in the count and then throwing four straight balls. Matz got two strikes on Chris Taylor, but his 92.9 mph sinker was in the middle of the plate and the Dodgers’ third baseman doubled to score Mookie Betts, who had reached on an uncharacteristic throwing error by Arenado.

Said Matz, who had fanned Taylor twice earlier in the game: “I’m surprised [Martinez] didn’t swing at that 3-2 changeup, and that was a good take for him. The big thing was I had a plan for what I wanted to do with Taylor, and I deviated from that. I’m kicking myself for that.”

Matz’s ERA over his last three starts is 2.35, a massive upgrade over the 6.39 ERA he had in his first six outings. Progress, for sure, but still not the victory the lefty desperately wants.

“It’s still a step in the right direction with where my stuff is,” Matz said. “Overall, it was another step.”