CLEVELAND -- The Indians entered play on Tuesday sitting five games back of the second American League Wild Card slot. But if the team wants to make a move in the final two months of the season, it will need to take advantage of starts like Cal Quantrill’s against the Cardinals.

St. Louis got on the board first with a third-inning solo homer by Harrison Bader, but that’s all Quantrill gave up in six strong frames that were punctuated by an escape from a bases-loaded jam in the sixth. Even though he left the game with a lead, the bullpen couldn’t back his performance, and the Indians fell, 4-2, on Tuesday night at Progressive Field, marking their 18th loss in their last 26 games.

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“I thought he did a really good job. Really good job,” Indians manager Terry Francona said of Quantrill. “He was aggressive. Again, turn the game over to your bullpen doing what he did, 2-1 -- that’s a pretty good job.”

For the second straight outing, Quantrill was stellar, giving up one run with one walk and five strikeouts. His nine whiffs matched his season high (also on May 26), with four of those coming on his slider. And while Quantrill may have struggled with the transition from reliever to starter at first, he certainly has settled in recently. He has turned in three six-inning starts in his last four outings.

“I think better game plan, kind of fully committing to a starter’s routine and, maybe most importantly, breaking it down inning by inning,” Quantrill said. “Like really focusing. Not getting too far ahead of yourself and imagining the seven-inning outing before it happens. Trying to stay focused on each hitter.”

Quantrill loaded the bases with one out in his final inning -- and appeared to have tweaked his knee after fielding a soft ground ball back to him and flipping it with his glove to the plate to record the second out.

“Yeah, we’re good,” he said. “Just jammed the knee a little bit. But I felt fine. I didn’t think I needed the extra pitch, but Tito was just making sure. So we’re all good.”

After a brief visit from the training staff, Quantrill remained in the game, forced Yadier Molina to line out to left and aggressively celebrated on the mound after pulling off the escape.

“Oh, it’s a blast,” he said. “Yeah, I was joking with the guys -- I got to find a way to get to the dugout before I go crazy. It seems like I’ve been doing it too much. Yeah, the emotions are the emotions. They’re a good team, this is the highest level of baseball, and when you’re able to get one done, you got to let it rip a little bit.”

But that was the last thing the Indians had to celebrate.

Aside from José Ramírez’s two-run homer in the fourth, Cleveland’s offense couldn’t muster any runs to give Quantrill some breathing room. And in the seventh, Bryan Shaw gave up a two-run blast to Paul DeJong that lifted the Cardinals into the lead before St. Louis tacked on another run in the ninth.

At one point this season, Cleveland’s recipe for success was to score at least three runs, while trusting its rotation to toss at least six innings. It accomplished half of that equation on Tuesday, but its record dropped to 27-10 in games in which its starter goes at least six frames. And it’s only grown more difficult for the club since Aaron Civale, Shane Bieber and Zach Plesac all went on the injured list.

Civale landed on the IL on June 24, and even though Plesac has since returned, the Indians entered Tuesday with the worst starter ERA (6.94) in the Majors since June 25 -- the day after losing Civale. And in that span, Cleveland’s postseason odds have dropped from 29.5% to 2.7%, according to Fangraphs. There’s still plenty of baseball left in the 2021 season, but it won’t be long before the team starts to run out of time to make a move. Quantrill believes one could be right around the corner.

“These last 20, 30 games haven’t been perfect,” Quantrill said. “But it’s a long season. It’s a lot of our guys’ first time doing 162 games. … I think there’s some learning happening. We’re grinding. We’re still competing. We’re playing really tight games.

“It feels like right now, [it’s] just tough baseball. We can’t seem to buy one. You just got to believe and continue to do things the right way. We’re gonna come out on top and we’ll get on a little streak here.”