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Trailing 3-0 in the first inning after Pallante allowed a three-run homer to Nathaniel Lowe, the Cardinals responded by pushing across one run against Nationals lefty starter MacKenzie Gore. The RBI hit, which came on a single from Alec Burleson, showed early life from the Cardinals offense before it was held mostly quiet by a left-hander once again.

In the five innings Gore pitched after his first frame, the Cardinals were limited to three hits, one walk and no runs against the lefty. Gore struck out seven batters on 89 pitches before he was lifted from his start at the start of the seventh inning. The limited offense was not enough to overcome a start by Pallante during which he allowed a season-high seven runs over six innings, leading to an 8-2 loss against Washington at Busch Stadium.

“He's left-handed. They've just given us trouble. There's no secret to it,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of his lineup’s performance against Gore. “We haven't done a nice job against (left-handers), but he's a good pitcher.”

While Pallante had trouble missing bats as the Nationals pushed across three runs in the first, three in the fourth and one in the fifth on a 434-foot homer from Amed Rosario, Gore’s ability to get whiffs against the Cardinals came with some timeliness.

Following a two-out single from Masyn Winn in the third, Gore held the young shortstop at first base to end the frame when he got Willson Contreras to swing and miss on a curveball. In the fourth, a walk to Yohel Pozo and a single from Lars Nootbaar gave the Cardinals multiple runners on base for the first time against Gore. The scoring chance was wiped away when the lefty got Pedro Pages to whiff on a curveball below the strike zone.

When Winn kept the fifth inning alive with a two-out double that dropped into shallow right field, Gore struck out Contreras for a second time by whizzing a 95.4 mph fastball by him for a swinging strikeout. The strikeout of Contreras in the fifth was Gore's third of that frame.

The five hits Gore limited the Cardinals (49-44) to dropped the their team batting average against left-handers to .232 and on-base plus slugging percentage to .660. After the loss, those figures, respectively, ranked 20th and 21st across the majors.

“(Gore) did a nice job,” Marmol said. “We were able to punch back with one with the single through the six-hole, but other than that, we just couldn't string a whole lot together. ... We put some good swings on (right-handed reliever Cole Henry) initially, but we couldn’t put enough across the board on the righty. We need to continue to hone in on how to get better against lefties. It’s real.”

Riding a three-start stretch that included 18 innings and two runs allowed, the seven runs surrendered by Pallante were his most in an outing since he gave up seven June 3 against the Royals. 

After the Lowe homer, Pallante kept the Nationals scoreless through the second and third innings as four ground balls and two fly balls found gloves. When he reached the fourth inning, their contact, both hard and soft, found holes.

Nationals hitters strung together four consecutive hits and five in total to score three runs in the fourth. The production included a 109.8 mph leadoff double by Josh Bell, a double from Alex Call on a 2-2 slider that required him to chase low and inside and singles from Brady House and Jacob Adams that had exit velocities below 67 mph.

“It's frustrating when your game starts off with the three-run homer,” Pallante said. “Then it's like I've got to be perfect. When an inning like that in the fourth happens, those are the ones that are going to happen to you sometimes, and you can't allow the other mistakes to happen before that inning.”

In his start, Pallante allowed hard contact — that being balls in play with exit velocities at or above 95 mph — on seven of the 25 balls put in play against him. Five of the hard-hit balls had exit velocities faster than 106 mph, per Statcast.

Pallante had five swings and misses on 100 pitches. Four of the five whiffs came on his slider. One came on his knuckle curveball. The righty’s sinker and four-seam fastball were put in play a combined 17 times.

“That's part of his (Pallante’s) game,” Marmol said. “There are times you're going to get it. There are times you're not going to get it. He's a high ball-in-play guy, and you're hoping it's at people. Hard contact wasn't, and some of the soft contact wasn't either. You're going to have to live with those games. You go into it knowing that that's a possibility. It is ideal? No.

“His good games, the curveball works for him. The speed difference is there. He gets ahead of guys, and contact is at people. You live and die off of the ball in play with him. It's just part of it.”