ST. LOUIS — Sonny Gray tried to step in and play the role of stopper and put a halt to the Cardinals’ losing slide, but even he couldn’t stem the tide against the National League Central Division-leading Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday afternoon.

Gray, a right-hander, gave a yeoman’s effort, including six scoreless innings to start his outing, but the two runs he allowed in the seventh were enough to keep the sputtering Cardinals offense at bay. The Cardinals were shut out for the second time this season in a 2-0 loss to the Brewers in front of an announced crowd of 40,715 at Busch Stadium.

The Brewers, who entered the day with the best road winning percentage in the majors (.818), swept the series and improved to 10-2 in road games. Meanwhile, the Cardinals (9-12) lost their sixth consecutive series finale.

A batting order shakeup did little to jolt a Cardinals lineup that came into the day scoring an average of 3.62 runs per game. They collected six hits and left 10 men on base. The lone extra-base hit, a double, came courtesy of Masyn Winn in the second inning.

Gray (2-1) allowed two runs on five hits and one walk. He struck out 12 in 6⅓ innings and took his first loss of the season.

Contreras brothers double up

The Cardinals moved catcher Willson Contreras up to the No. 2 hole in the batting order for Sunday’s game. First baseman Paul Goldschmidt dropped to the No. 5 spot in the lineup for the first time this season. He hadn’t batted anywhere other than the No. 2 spot this season.

With that change to the Cardinals lineup, that meant Willson Contreras batted second and started at catcher opposite his younger brother William Contreras, who started at catcher and batted second for the Brewers.

William Contreras, a 2022 NL All-Star and a 2023 Silver Slugger Award winner, entered the day among the top five in the majors in batting average (.372, first), on-base percentage (.444, third), RBIs (20, third), hits (29, fifth) and runs (18, fifth).

Through the first two games of the series, he went 5 for 11 with three RBIs against the Cardinals. His 10 multihit games at the start of the day tied him with the Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani for the MLB lead. William Contreras also had a 12-game hitting streak earlier this season.

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