OAKLAND, Calif. – As if tribute to the plucky way Whitey Herzog’s clubs conjured runs when they lacked the power to just simplify things, the Cardinals turned whatever they could muster Tuesday into just enough runs to matter.

It wasn’t the flash of the classic, speedy Whiteyball but it came with a dash of defense as the Cardinals maximized a few minimal hits for a 3-2 victory Tuesday against the Athletics.

Headed into the seventh inning, the Cardinals had as many hits as they had runs because each of the runs they scored to take the lead scored on an out. A stolen base in the third inning and a sacrifice bunt allowed a groundout to produce the Cardinals’ first run, and two walks that led to two sacrifice flies flipped the game on the A’s in the sixth at the Oakland Coliseum. Rookie shortstop Masyn Winn, who has that Herzog-ready skill set of gliding speed and glistening glove, walked twice, stole once, and broke a tie ballgame with his sacrifice fly.

He even tried to bunt for a base hit in the eighth.

The cobbling together of walks and fly balls to produce runs made a winner of Lance Lynn for the first time since he returned to the Cardinals, the team that drafted him. Lynn (1-0) limited the A’s to one earned run (two runs total) through seven innings. A night after Sonny Gray earned his 100th career win, Lynn moved ever closer to a milestone of his own with his 137th career win. It was his 73rd with the Cardinals – and first for them since 2017.

Ryan Helsley retired all three batters he faced in the ninth inning for his seventh save of the young season.

The victory puts the Cardinals (9-9) back at .500 for the season and within a win of closing out a series sweep in Oakland before returning home from their second West Coast trip of the month. They are, to date, winless in the final games of series this series, and they failed to sweep San Diego and Miami when they won the first two games of the series.

Cue the productive outs

Against Oakland starter J. P. Sears, Winn drew a leadoff walk in the third inning and the Cardinals’ machinations were afoot.

Winn stole second for his third steal of the season.

After a walker by Jordan Walker, Michael Siani, the Cardinals’ No. 9 hitter Tuesday, dropped a bunt to push both of his teammates into scoring position. That made it possible for Winn to speed home on a groundball to third and tie the game, 1-1.

Down by a run in the sixth, the Cardinals followed the same theme, just with a different formula. This time the sacrifices weren’t bunts, but fly balls. Nolan Arenado’s second hit of the game led off the inning. He would eventually get to third after consecutive walks loaded the bases. Lars Nootbaar fell behind in the count with and awkward swing on the first pitch only to still grind out a walk and load the bases with no outs.

Those came next.

Winn flew out to center.

Arenado scored.

Walker flew out to right.

Ivan Herrera scored.

That is out the Cardinals took the lead.

The Cardinals did not have a hit in the third inning as they produced a run, and they spun one hit in the sixth inning into two runs for the lead.

Happy birthday, Nolan. Got you grounders.

A couple of singles and a run scored weren’t the only gifts the game had in mind for the Cardinals’ Gold Glove-winning third baseman.

Arenado, who turned 33 on Tuesday, had six assists going into the ninth inning, one shy of the season-high for the position anywhere else in the majors. Arenado had two hotshot grounders in the eighth inning that he casually turned into outs for lefty reliever JoJo Romero. A 10-time Gold Glove winner, Arenado manned the spot on the field once patrolled by a former high school teammate, Matt Chapman, when he was on the A’s. Arenado didn’t play as deep on the field as Chapman did here. Didn’t need to.

Three of Arenado’s assists came against Zack Gelof, the A’s second baseman who pulled grounder after grounder to the right side of the infield and each time could not outrun Arenado’s throw.

3,296

That’s it.

That’s the number.

That’s the announced crowd who gathered for the game.

It's not the smallest crowd the Cardinals have ever played in front of. They had a smaller crowd hosting the Pirates in 1989, for example, and back in 2017 they played in front of a crowd of 2,600 at PNC Park. Speaking of the Pirates, the A's next home series is against them.

Oakland capitalizes on error(s)

Of the first five runs scored in the game, only one came with a simple swing. The others were all intricate segments of 90 feet or so pieced together like clockwork. It took a throwing error on the infield to put the game’s first offensive series in such motion.

Tyler Nevin skipped a grounder up the middle that Winn got to with his glove, but his throw sailed wide of first base.

Nevin took second.

He then scored two batters later on a single up the middle for the A’s 1-0 lead.

Lynn pitched around a double in the fourth inning, helped out by a sinker that he slipped past Nevin to end an eight-pitch at-bat with a strikeout. In the next inning – the fifth – catcher Kyle McCann also saw a sequence of different fastballs from Lynn. When the Cardinals’ right-hander shifted from cutter to four-seam fastball, the ball stayed up and over the middle of the plate until McCann put it up and over the wall in right-center field. The errant fastball became McCann’s first homer in the majors and broke the tie. Oakland would hold the lead for as long as it took the Cardinals to get a couple of sacrifice flies a few minutes later.

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