ST. LOUIS _ Every time the Cardinals showed a flash of promise Saturday, making a play or two that inspired hope that their lineup might be able to scrape together enough runs to beat the Diamondbacks, they would come derailed just as quickly.
The performance was representative of the team's season.
Saturday, playing in front of 48,052 fans, the largest crowd in the history of Busch Stadium III, was the Cardinals' third chance since the All-Star break to get back to .500 with a win. They have lost all three of those games.
The biggest challenge in this series against the Diamondbacks has been scoring. Coming into Saturday's game, the Cardinals lineup had scored one total run in the first two games of the series, and it was unearned.
Saturday got off to a hopeful start. The first three Cardinals batters got hits off Diamondbacks ace Zack Greinke in the bottom of the first inning.
Matt Carpenter started the frame by ending an eight-pitch at bat with a ground rule double. Tommy Pham advanced Carpenter to third with a single and then Paul DeJong drove Carpenter home with a single of his own.
That was the last hit the team would with a runner in scoring position.
Jedd Gyorko flew out and then Yadier Molina and Kolten Wong both struck out to end the frame. Greinke found his rhythm after that, allowing just one more hit and no more runs in the next six innings.
That's not to say the Cardinals didn't have more opportunities against Greinke.
In the bottom of the fourth, Randal Grichuk led off with a double. Harrison Bader followed with a walk, placing two runners on base with no outs. But pinch hitter Luke Voit struck out and Carpenter hit into a double play to end the inning.
Similarly, in the sixth, Pham made it to second base with no outs when Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt dropped his pop up. That brought the theoretical heart of the Cardinals order to the plate _ its three, four and five hitters.
Gyorko, Molina and Wong hit three straight ground outs. Pham never made it to third.
In the series, Cardinals went a combined 5 for 26 at the plate with runners in scoring position. The bottom five positions in the team's lineup hit a combined 5 for 47.
In the other half-innings, Cardinals starter Mike Leake began the game strong. Leake did not allow a hit in the first three innings, and the sinkerballer uncharacteristically struck out the side in the second.
Leake ran into trouble in the fourth, however.
Leake started the inning by hitting Diamondbacks third baseman Jake Lamb with a pitch _ his second hit batter of the day. That brought Goldschmidt to the plate.
Goldschmidt drove a fly ball deep into right field. It went over the glove of Grichuk and bounced off the top of the wall. The hit was ruled a home run, and that ruling was upheld by a video review.
The next batter, J.D. Martinez, hit a homer that required no review. Martinez drove a Leake slider an estimated 466 feet into left-center.
Leake exited after five innings having only allowed the three runs, and the Cardinals bullpen clung to that lead for two innings.
John Brebbia pitched a scoreless sixth, and after lefty Zach Duke put two runners on base with one out in the seventh, Matt Bowman entered and escaped from the jam without surrendering a run. Bowman walked Goldschmidt but forced a double play from Martinez, in which Martinez was originally ruled safe at first but replay showed Carpenter still had a toe on the bag when he caught the throw.
The Cardinals didn't record a hit in the bottom of the seventh, and by the time the offense took to the plate again the game was out of reach.
In the top of the eighth, reliever Kevin Siegrist gave up a walk to former Cardinal Daniel Descalso and then a two-run homer to shortstop Ketel Marte. The low point of the game came later in the frame when, with two men on base, A.J. Pollock hit a ground ball toward third base. Gyorko and DeJong both charged at the ball and, seeing each other, both stopped, allowing it to roll into the outfield, scoring a run.
The Diamondbacks scored the final run of the game on a sacrifice fly later in the inning.
