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CINCINNATI — When he got a chance recently to thank Adam Wainwright in person for the supportive text message earlier this season, Cardinals rookie starter Michael McGreevy pocketed some advice, too.

“Simplify,� the 200-game winner said. “Get down in the zone.�

“I’m trying, Waino. I’m trying,� McGreevy said late Saturday night in the clubhouse as he recreated the conversation. “Easy for him to say. It’s a great rule of thumb. Try to stay down.�

It’s a proven way to tame Great American Ball Park.

For the first time since 2009, the Cardinals played a game and did not strike out a single opponent. Saturday’s game was only the second time in the majors this season and seventh time since 2021 that one team did not strike out a batter.

McGreevy and three relievers found out what a good glove can do as they coaxed 17 ground outs in a 4-2 victory Saturday against Cincinnati. One of those ground outs was a pivotal double play pitched by lefty JoJo Romero to unplug the Reds’ rally in the seventh inning. On a beautiful night for baseball with an energetic attendance of 32,076, the Cardinals put on a clinic for how to win at the coziest confines and take the air of Cincinnati.

The Cardinals pitchers kept the Reds grounded.

Two Cardinals hitters got the ball up, up and away for solo homers — by Willson Contreras and Pedro Pages — that were the difference in the score.

“When in doubt, spam the sinker,� McGreevy said. “Keep the ball down. Definitely a small park. Definitely stays in the back of your mind: You want to keep the ball on the ground. Definitely made the defense work.�

The Cardinals’ pitch-to-contact rotation has become one of the driving narratives of the season — as a throwback, as an identity and as a concern. More than a decade after Cardinals Hall of Fame pitching coach Dave Duncan would preach the gospel of the two-seam fastball and turn around careers by turning pitchers on to the sinker, strikeouts dominate the industry. The game increasingly requires swing-and-miss pitches to contend because inviting even meek contact is playing the probabilities.

Throughout the second half of the season, the Cardinals have felt the whipsaw fortune of batted balls in play. Miles Mikolas or Andre Pallante can breeze through starts when balls are hit toward teammates and wheeze through games when bloops and bleeders find seams. Sinkers don’t often get to choose the direction the batted ball bounces. Both right-handers have been working on pitches that invite more swings and misses.

Pallante started the series finale in Cincinnati on Sunday aiming to land a curveball that gets left-handed batters off his signature fastball. McGreevy joined the rotation full time in the past month with the ability to land six different pitches — but the profile of another ground ball-greedy starter.

“He mixed well,� manager Oli Marmol said late Saturday. “Made pitches. Got ahead. Just a ton of ground-ball outs. Lived on the ground. Threw anything, everything in any count. Kept them off balance. When needed, he made the big pitch.�

When they offered, he took advantage of the Reds’ eagerness.

McGreevy (6-2) allowed three hits in the first inning and two hits in the next five. He also snapped three bats with his fastball in that first inning. So it goes with a sinker. What he learned was how aggressive the Reds intended to be in their approach. Three of the first four batters he faced put the first or second pitch in play, and so did six of the first dozen.

“To start the game, they were swinging early,� McGreevy said. “I was laughing. I can’t get strikeouts if I can’t get to two strikes. They’re not even letting me get two strikes. Baseball is a funny game. You hit a career high in strikeouts the week before and then it’s absolute zero. It’s crazy. Hey, we win. That’s all that matters.�

The Cardinals faced 37 batters and struck out none.

The last time they did that was in June 2009 in a loss to the Mets, and the last time they won a game without a strikeout was April 2009, also against the Mets in a game featuring starter Joel Pineiro and his one-seam sinker.

“Man, none?� Pages said. “I think today was a day of balls in play.�

In a no-decision this past week against Pittsburgh, McGreevy struck out a career-high seven batters in six innings. The 25-year-old right-hander has 40 strikeouts in 69 innings pitched in the majors. Friday was the fifth time in his past nine starts that he’s coaxed at least 10 ground balls. Of the 18 outs he collected Saturday, 12 came on the ground — and four of them came back to him on the mound.

That included the first out of the game.

And that included the final out of his start, which he could have walked to first base to finish the sixth inning if he wished.

“His sinker is very good,� catcher Pages said. “It’s a ground-ball pitch. If we’re going to get quick outs and they’re going to give us quick outs early, we’re going to take it.�

Throughout Saturday’s game, ground balls shaped the outcome. Nathan Church poked a two-out, two-run single past a diving Elly De La Cruz to give the Cardinals their first lead of the game in fourth inning. In the seventh, the Reds got a solo homer to trim the Cardinals’ lead to a run, and reliever Jorge Alcala walked leadoff batter TJ Friedl to put the tying run on base. Romero quelled that threat on two pitches — the second of which got an inning-ending double play.

In relief of Romero, Kyle Leahy got a ground out to end the eighth inning, and in the ninth, all three outs came on the ground, including a curious bunt choice that was a gift from Cincinnati to the Cardinals. Leahy fielded two of the three outs in the inning.

“I didn’t make them look particularly easy,� he deadpanned.

For the most part, the rest of the defense did.

When McGreevy had a slider leak over the plate too much, the resulting hot-shot grounder was gloved by a diving Nolan Gorman at third base. Gorman made the play to help keep the fifth scoreless. In the sixth, two more grounders went to Gorman, and he erased the Red who hit a double by quickly tapping third for a force out.

McGreevy threw 93 pitches to complete six innings. All six of his August starts went exactly six innings, and he leads the rotation with three quality starts in the month. Yet to complete the six innings Saturday, McGreevy had not thrown any one type of pitch more than 25 times. He threw at least a dozen of five different pitches. While he leans on the sinker, he also throws a sweeping slider low in the zone that can cause grounders, and he use his curveball and four-seamer to adjust eye levels that eventually lead to teasing the hitter back into a ground ball.

“He knows all of it gets back to beating it into the ground,� Marmol said.

Which harmonizes with Wainwright’s tip.

Stay low.

Grow from there.

“If I was in Triple-A and didn’t get a strikeout, I would be a little pissed,� McGreevy said. “But here, it’s like, you’ve got to get outs. If you can go six innings, one run, no strikeouts — I’ll take that any day of the week.�