ST. LOUIS — For seven innings Saturday night, Logan Gilbert was as good as ever. Maybe better than ever.
The revamped Mariners offense, meanwhile, was about as unwatchable as its been all season.
With no wiggle room to work with, Gilbert made one mistake — the only mistake all night — and the Cardinals punished him for it.
St. Louis catcher Pedro Pagés turned on a slider that Gilbert hung over the middle of the plate with one out in the eighth inning, a two-run blast to score the first and only runs of the game in the Cardinals’ 2-0 victory at Busch Stadium.
In a season filled with so many of them, Gilbert was hit with another hard-luck loss.
Gilbert had allowed only one hit and one walk through seven brilliant innings.
With one out in the eighth, he hit Jordan Walker with a 3-2 fastball.
Two pitches later, Pagés got what might have been the only real hittable pitch the Cardinals got all night — and he belted it 402 feet out to left field.
Gilbert knew it immediately. The Mariners’ tall right-hander spun around the base of the mound and curse himself. He didn’t even bother to watch the flight of the ball.
Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley retired the Mariners in the top of the ninth to close it out.
With the Astros beating the Diamondbacks earlier Saturday, the Mariners (72-71) dropped 5.5 games back in the AL West.
The Mariners did little against Cardinals soft-tossing right-hander Kyle Gibson, who allowed just three hits over 6.2 innings with three walks and nine strikeouts.
They loaded the bases in the first inning and again in the seventh — but couldn’t push across a run either time.
The Mariners stranded 10 runners in all.