ST. LOUIS -- At last, some run support came for Sonny Gray -- and he more than took care of the rest.

Hard as it may be to believe based on Gray’s 3.18 ERA and clean bill of health all season, the All-Star right-hander had somehow gone winless since April 30, a puzzling streak that finally ended on Thursday with his seven sparkling innings in a 5-3 Twins victory that clinched a needed series win against the National League Central’s last-place Cardinals.

“My last start, somebody asked if you’re aware of it, and I was like, ‘Yes I am aware of it,’” Gray said. “It does, it feels nice to get your name next to a ‘W.’ More importantly, it feels nice to win a series after coming out and playing well the first game, [then] dropping the middle one.”

Finally, there was no blow-up inning, no nibbling around the edges of the zone, no offensive silence to cost Gray a hard-earned effort.

Instead, Gray did as he’s vocally demanded of himself after so many of his less polished outings this season: Just attack, attack, attack.

For the first time this season, Gray did not issue a walk in consecutive starts as he pummeled the strike zone, needing only 77 pitches to carve up the St. Louis lineup through seven innings, matching his season-high. More impressively, he was that efficient while also collecting eight strikeouts, his most since May 12.

He threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 26 hitters, and he never needed more than 15 pitches to get through an inning, only giving up a second-inning RBI double by Dylan Carlson and a sixth-inning solo homer by Alec Burleson.

“I think I’ve just been building and trending in a direction with filling up the zone,” Gray said. “It’s been something that was a focal point. You know there, for a minute, that wasn’t necessarily happening. That’s been a thing lately, is to attack in the zone. A few homers may come with that. A few hits may come with that. At the end of the day, they may not, too.”

That’s key for Gray, because too often, the runs and walks have come in chunks, leading to the occasional blow-up innings that stand in stark contrast to dominant stretches throughout the remainder of those starts. All too often, it seems like one hit or one walk opens the floodgates, as the veteran himself has professed that he often tries to get too fine in those situations.

Even when Burleson hit a leadoff single in the second, he attacked Tommy Edman and Carlson in the zone. When Carlson doubled to drive in the run, he shrugged it off. Attack, attack. Andrew Knizner and Taylor Motter both lofted balls into the air for outs.

“That's been a big change, is, if you do give up a run, who cares? Continue to push forward and not let that sit with you,” Gray said. “I'm not going to start nibbling here. I'm not going to give the next guy a free pass and then the next guy a free pass and see what happens. I'm just going to continue to just say, ‘[Forget] it, I'm still going to come right at you.’”

Beyond that, Gray was efficient as he always is when he’s at his best, exiting after seven due to the club’s rested bullpen and the stifling humidity in St. Louis.

It helped, too, that the bats finally woke up for him. Thanks to a pair of two-run blasts by Ryan Jeffers and Michael A. Taylor in the second inning off Cardinals left-hander Matthew Liberatore, the Twins gave Gray more than three runs of support while he was still in the game for the first time since June 15, eight starts ago.

Gray would have been on the attack regardless, but that cushion certainly helped him shrug off the double here, the homer there -- and after going without reward despite having thrown seven quality starts since that last win more than three months ago, things finally all came together to get the elephant out of the room.

“Sonny has just put up quality start after quality start,” Taylor said. “The fact that he hasn’t won since April has nothing to do with the way he’s been pitching. We knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Not a lot of wins came in for a while, so maybe now you’ll go on a run and win every game you start,” Gray said.