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SEATTLE — The bluntest assessment of one misstep among myriad missed opportunities late Wednesday night against the Seattle Mariners came from the Cardinal who found himself taking a lead from second base and quickly striding from bad to worse.

“I (messed) up,� Ivan Herrera said.

Herrera began the top of the 10th inning as the bonus runner starting in scoring position. He strayed too far from second base on a fly ball to right field and failed to tag up to put a go-ahead run 90 feet from home with one out and poised to take the lead.

Frustrated by his mistake, he then made things worse.

When Willson Contreras hit a fly ball to center field, Herrera tried to make up for his previous error and raced from the base — only to be doubled-up easily when Contreras’ fly ball was caught.

Pitching, as it so often did Wednesday, covered for the mistake and maintained a tie game into the 13th inning at T-Mobile Park.

It ended there on the first pitch of the bottom of the 13th, when Leo Rivas, who entered the game as a pinch runner in the 11th, hit a walk-off homer.

A game rich with importance for the host Mariners and their pursuit of a playoff berth was laced with lessons for the Cardinals and their focus on the future.

There was the bitterness of a stockpile of missed opportunities and mistakes that caught up with them in the 4-2 loss. There was also an encouraging rebound performance by starter Michael McGreevy against a robust lineup.

There was both the strong, grinding approach that exhausted one of the best starters in the majors and at-bats where Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert overpowered the Cardinals when just a ball in play would have changed the game.

“Frustrated but also pretty excited about some of the things we just saw,� Marmol said late Wednesday night in his office. “Frustrated because you want to put that game away earlier.�

The extra-innings win gave Seattle a series sweep and a tighter hold on their wild-card lead. The loss delayed the Cardinals’ red-eye charter flight to Milwaukee, where they open a three-game series against the division-leading Brewers. Six of the Cardinals’ next nine games are against Milwaukee, a team that has usurped not only the Cardinals’ reign in the National League Central but also increasingly their reputation with sharp, fundamental play.

The Brewers have become what the Cardinals were.

The Cardinals are still searching for what they can be.

And they spent 13 innings Wednesday showing both sides of that — the progress made in some areas and the strides still necessary, even when improvement means just staying put.

Here are a few of those two steps forward and one step back, by the numbers:

6

A focus over the previous week for starter McGreevy was, as Sonny Gray suggested, throwing the first pitch of the game like he was the closer throwing the final pitch of a win.

McGreevy believed that initial aggressiveness would overcome the trend of first-inning success against him. He retired the side in the first inning Wednesday in order, and he finished the inning by striking out Julio Rodriguez. That gave him immediate momentum for a bounce back from allowing six runs on nine hits this past weekend to the Giants. McGreevy authored his seventh six-inning start in his past eight appearances.

The lone run he allowed scored on a sacrifice fly.

The right-hander utilized his assortment of six pitches, and he got at least one swing-and-miss on five of them. McGreevy also remixed his pitches so that he didn’t fall into patterns where he used a specific pitch — say, his sinker — against hitters from one side of the plate.

“You always have to try and be ambiguous with all of your pitches,� McGreevy said late Wednesday in the clubhouse. “Especially if you have six or seven — show them everything. Hitting is hard already even if it’s not the best matchup of a pitch. Throwing their mind through a blender if you throw the (right-handed batter) a cutter, which I rarely do. I threw a couple of righties cutters. It’s just like, ‘Oh, geez, I guess he’s using that today.’ So just another thing for them to think about.�

Said Marmol: “It wasn’t just a sinker-spin mix. The curveball was there. Used the four-seamer. Used the cutter. A lot more variables to deal with there as a hitter.�

The best illustration of this came in the sixth.

With two outs and MVP candidate Cal Raleigh looming, Randy Arozarena singled off McGreevy. The score was level, 1-1, and the Cardinals had quieted Raleigh all week — keeping him from the homer that would tie Mickey Mantle for the single-season record for home runs by a switch-hitter, at 54. Instead of going to a reliever, the Cardinals stuck with McGreevy for a third time against Raleigh. McGreevy challenged him with three off-speed pitches, including another change-up beneath the strike zone that got the strikeout.

“I was like: He’s going to swing and miss at one of these change-ups,� McGreevy said.

75

Two batters into the fourth inning, the Cardinals had two singles, two on and another opportunity to retake and even stretch their lead against Gilbert.

The Cardinals lineup had sapped Gilbert’s pitch count in the same way they forced his teammate, right-hander George Kirby, into a bloated pitch count Tuesday night. Kirby was out of the game after four innings, and it took 85 pitches for him to get those 12 outs. Gilbert threw his 75th pitch and did not have an out in the fourth inning.

His 40th pitch of the game got the fourth out of the game.

The approach was successful as it ultimately limited Gilbert to 4 1/3 innings, but within those innings, he had timely strikeouts that proved costly for the Cardinals.

2 for 22

Leading by a run thanks to Herrera’s solo homer in the first inning, the Cardinals promptly loaded the bases against Gilbert to begin the second inning.

Thomas Saggese had four hits, including an RBI single in the 11th to finally regain a lead, and he reached base in his first three at-bats. Pedro Pages followed him with singles in his first two at-bats. They were each stranded every time. The Cardinals loaded the bases in the second with no outs.

And Gilbert struck out the next three batters.

In the fourth inning, Saggese singled, Pages singled and Jose Fermin opted to adjust from the previous chance he had and bunted both into scoring position. No. 9 hitter and rookie outfielder Nathan Church followed Fermin, and Gilbert already had set a patter for him to attack the left-handed batter.

Church struck out on a splitter in the second inning with the bases loaded. He popped up a bunt attempt that went foul to begin his at-bat in the fourth inning. Gilbert then threw him four consecutive splitters to get the swinging strikeout. Too often, the potential rally found the newest members of the Cardinals lineup, though leadoff hitter Lars Nootbaar also left five runners on base.

By the end of nine innings, the Cardinal were 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position. They struck out 13 times in regulation, seven of them with a runner in scoring position.

With a runner starting at second in extras, the Cardinals finished 2 for 22 with runners in scoring position.

Three times in the first five innings, the Cardinals got at least a runner into scoring position with no outs and failed to produce a run.

“They’re teaching moments all throughout that game,� Marmol said. “You want to be able to take your punch, score a couple and put that game away. We weren’t able to do that. There were other parts of that game that were highly frustrating from an offensive standpoint that we just have to be better.�

90

One was Herrera’s baserunning in the extra innings.

Alec Burleson pulled the liner toward right field that prompted Herrera to leave second base behind. If the ball got away from the Mariners’ right fielder, Herrera would have scored easily. But when the catch was made, Herrera was nowhere near second to take the necessary 90 feet that would have put him at third.

If he tagged up, a second fly ball scores him.

If he tagged up, a wild pitch or passed ball scores him.

But he didn’t.

“That can’t happen,� Marmol said.

Herrera’s frustration was clear as he pounded his leg, but it was also just beginning.

“I was trying (on) the first one as I thought the ball was top spin,� Herrera said. “I thought it was going to land. Which it didn’t. I kept thinking that, and I (messed) up again. Part of the game. Going to try and learn from that. Try to do better.�

Had Herrera been at third base, he likely would have scored on Contreras’ fly ball to center, but because he didn’t even stay at second during it, he ran into the double play that ended the inning. It technically was a two-batter inning — a possibility only because of Major League Baseball’s extra-inning rule with a runner starting on base.

“I know with nobody on, I have to tag no matter want,� Herrera said. “Just got carried away in the moment. Tie game. That shouldn’t happen. I thought (Contreras’ fly ball) was going to land too, and I just kept thinking, trying to make up for the first one. All of that was in my head because I messed up the first time.�

361

That’s the number of feet Rivas’ home run traveled.

As he prepared for his extra-inning at-bat, Rivas spent time in the batting cage bunting. But by the time he led off the 13th inning, he told reporters he got that sign to swing away.

Reliever Ryan Fernandez opened with an 86.6 mph slider.

Rivas ended the game by dropping it into the right field seats.

It was his second homer of the season.

“There’s a lot of strategy involved in that game, a lot of execution,� Marmol said. “At the end of the day, a guy off the bench beats us.�