ST. LOUIS _ For a day designed to celebrate excess, from the number of championships they fly to the number of Hall of Fame players they flaunt, the Cardinals followed all of the riches of their home opener with a slogging, meandering finish Thursday night that was marked by absence.
Arizona and the lefty Robbie Ray held the Cardinals to two hits and teased them for most of the game by not adding to a 3-1 victory at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals got a leadoff walk in the sixth inning and didn't have another batter reach base safely in the game.
"We were not on offense very much," manager Mike Matheny said. "They kept us at bay. Two hits isn't usually going to work. We were in that game more than we should be when you get two hits. One of those days they had a starting pitcher that had what he was looking for and guys weren't picking him up."
Ray (2-0) set the pace by rocking the Cardinals' lineup to snooze with his slider and elevated fastball. He struck out nine, and he did so with an economy that stood out because of how inefficient Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright was. The Cardinals' veteran right-hander lobbied to make Thursday's start _ his fifth home opener start _ and only had to prove the health of his hamstring. The Cardinals were convinced about his effectiveness after watching him work all spring with a new arm angle, a healthy elbow, and a retooled use of his pitches.
He didn't have as many at his fingertips Thursday.
Wainwright (0-1) lost the feel for his sinker by the second inning, and he found himself relying heavily on his four-seam fastball and curveball. That got him three strikeouts, but it didn't help him find a way out of the fourth inning. He was lifted after 3 2/3 innings.
"Every time I tried to throw a sinker, I got underneath it," Wainwright said. "I wasn't making the good adjustments as often as I needed to. Pretty much the only pitch I was throwing effectively for strikes was the curveball. ... Certainly a lot more outs in me than I had."
The Cardinals chance to reduce, erase, or upend Arizona's lead came throughout the game _ and went.
Marcell Ozuna, in his first home game with the Cardinals, drilled a ball to deep left center, but Busch contained it for a simple fly out. In the eighth, Dexter Fowler, batting from the right side, hammered a pitch in the same direction _ and saw it too fall shy of changing the score. It was caught for a simple fly out. In the eighth inning, an error brought the tying run to the plate, and Arizona responded to Ozuna's approach by going to Archie Bradley.
He caught Ozuna looking at a 97-mph fastball to end the inning.
At that point the Cardinals were 1-for-14 with a runner on base.
The game had so little pace that it sucked the pep out of it, too.
A raucous crowd of 46,512 greeted Hall of Fame players and returning coaches, like Jose Oquendo, lustily. Willie McGee was so celebrated that he got two loud applauses as he was introduced as both a member of the Cardinals' Hall of Fame and later as a member of the coaching staff. With the new Budweiser Terrace hovering above right field and filled with mingling _ but very few seats _ the usual buzz filled the opening moments of the opener. By the end of the second inning, Ray had rocked it to sleep.
The lefty with a snazzy curve and a languid rhythm, got tagged for a single in Marcell Ozuna's first home at-bat as a Cardinal and followed that with a walk to Jose Martinez.
With two runners on base, Ray retired the next three batters.
He struck out DeJong for the first of his three in the game, and he got rookie Yairo Munoz to pass over of a pitch in the dirt. Munoz was thrown out at first on the strikeout. That happened twice to the infielder in his first major-league start.
By the end of the third inning, Ray had five of his nine strikeouts.
The ease with which he passed through the Cardinals' lineup contrasted with Wainwright's laborious, pitch count-heavy tour. It took Wainwright 68 pitches to get through the first innings. Ray needed 46 to get nine outs. That was how many pitches Ray had thrown in the game when Wainwright left the game, having thrown 89. Wainwright danced into deep counts and around trouble in almost every inning. He had several pitches on the edges called against him _ especially on his curve _ and his evening ended when shortstop DeJong made an error. It was one a few key plays not made behind Wainwright that would eased his passage.
With each passing inning, Wainwright's average fastball velocity also dropped, from 91.8 mph as he got through the first inning to 89.4 mph in his second inning and 86.2 mph in his final inning. It was reminiscent of last year when Wainwright saw a drop in velocity as he tried to pitch through a deep bone bruise and other ailments in his right elbow.
He and Matheny suggested that Wainwright took a little off his fastball in order to generate more movement or give him more control.
"I tried to tone it back," the pitcher sad. "I wasn't locating it."
He had his curve.
In the first inning, he caught Paul Goldschmidt looking at the curve. In the second inning, Alex Avila swung silly at the curve for the first out of the inning. Avila struck out twice on the curve _ once whiffing and the other time called. Those were Wainwright's three strikeouts, all on curves.
The Diamondbacks opened their lead in the second inning when Wainwright intentionally walked Jarrod Dyson to face Ray with the bases loaded. The D-Backs' pitcher lifted a sacrifice fly to center field for an RBI and a 1-0 lead. David Peralta followed with an RBI single to right field. Arizona added its third run off Wainwright in the fourth inning with Peralta's RBI double that skipped through the infield and to right-center. Wainwright hopped off the mound and bent over in frustration as the ball reached the outfield grass.
He got a groundball from the next batter, too, and the wide throw from DeJong meant the inning didn't end for Wainwright. His start did. The righthander left two runners on that reliever Matt Bowman stranded.
The Cardinals' run came in the bottom of the fourth, after Wainwright had exited and just as Ray had hit cruise control. Matt Carpenter worked a walk, and Martinez did as well. Yadier Molina, who received one of the loudest ovations as he was introduced while warming up Wainwright, threaded a hit down the third-base line for a double. Carpenter scored, and Martinez got to third with only one out. Molina pointed to the dugout as he ran toward first base, the ball caroming off the seats jutting into the left-field foul territory. A fly ball, a grounder _ something in play would have slashed Arizona's lead down to a run.
Ray repeated what he did in a similar spot in the second.
He struck out DeJong.
He got Munoz on a ball in the dirt.
