MONTERREY, Mexico _ That flurry of hits that Estadio de Beisbol Monterrey seemed to invite with its swift infield and nearby walls didn't happen for Cincinnati, but the few that did proved costly for the Cardinals.
Adam Wainwright took a no-hitter through five innings and Cincinnati had a difficult time getting the ball out of the infield. Two batters into the sixth inning that changed.
One batter in the seventh, the Reds had a lead.
Jesse Winker hit a home run to break up Wainwright's shutout, and Derek Dietrich followed an inning later with a solo homer that snapped a tie and sent Cincinnati toward a 5-2 victory at Estadio de Beisbol Monterrey. A problematic eighth inning that featured two near-miss diving catches in the outfield for the Cardinals allowed the Reds to scored three runs and pull away in what had been a tight game. The Cardinals got the tying run to the plate twice in the ninth inning with the middle-order Pauls.
Paul Goldschmidt flew out to right field, and No. 3 hitter Paul DeJong popped up. Yasiel Puig caught the ball sliding into shallow right field to end the game and DeJong's hitting streak at a career-best 12 games.
The loss in the first of two games in the Mexico Series against the Reds ended the Cardinals' five-game winning streak
The big hops and bigger blasts that the Cardinals expected at the ballpark happened _ just not in bunches. A few wonky hops led to three triples in the game, but only three of the seven runs scored came on home runs. Kolten Wong thumped Zach Duke for a solo homer in the eighth to give the Cardinals' their second run. A paid attendance of 16,886 left portions of the outfield seating empty and came shy of the 21,900 capacity, but the festival atmosphere carried through the game _ as Wainwright (1-1) toyed early with a no-hitter and the Reds answered late.
The closeness of the seats, and limited foul territory left Matt Carpenter to describe the ballpark, nicknamed Palacio Sultan for the Monterrey home team, as "the presence."
"Kind of engulfing," he said.
In the eighth, as the Cardinals' bullpen tried to freeze the Reds' one-run lead, Harrison Bader tracked down a ball in deep right-center field. He got his glove on the ball during a dive, but could not control it for a catch. From the warning track he threw a line to third base, but just barely behind the runner. That triple, by Phillip Ervin, put the three-run inning in motion, and Tyler O'Neill's diving attempt five batters later led to a triple that scored two more runs.
In the first start by a Cardinals pitcher outside of the United States and Canada, it took six innings for Wainwright to give up the first hit.
The Cardinals' veteran went two times through the Reds' order and allowed only two baserunners, both on walks. Wainwright struck out two batters in the first inning and that set the tone for the first two-thirds of the game. It took the Reds until the fifth inning to get a ball beyond the reach of a Cardinals' infielder, and even that was a shallow fly ball that Marcell Ozuna caught near the left-field line. Wainwright closed out the fifth inning with a groundout and his third strikeout of the game. He got through five innings on 61 pitches, and the Cardinals' bullpen barely stirred.
