CINCINNATI — The St. Louis Cardinals did more with their misspent weekdays in Cincinnati than struggle to score runs, get utterly swept by the Cincinnati Reds, and plunge back into the murky depths of a losing record.

They were also able to cram into their visit one of the ugliest innings of the season.

To complete an emphatic three-game sweep that knotted the two teams in the standings, Cincinnati thumped the Cardinals with five home runs on the way to a 9-2 victory Wednesday night at Great American Ball Park. Jonathan India and TJ Friedl each hit a pair of home runs to power the rout and punctuate a three-day shellacking of the formerly second-place Cardinals. They were outscored in the series, 19-4.

The Cardinals’ ninth loss in their past 13 games dropped them back into a losing record at 60-61. With the sweep, the Reds are now tied with the Cardinals in NL Central standings.

And, if the results weren’t ugly enough, the fifth inning was.

After starter Kyle Gibson allowed the third and fourth homer of his start and left the game to the bullpen, the Cardinals defense came unraveled. They committed two errors and two other misplays to give what the Reds had no problem taking for themselves all series – more runs. A brief flicker of a rally for the Cardinals was extinguished in the sixth as the Reds got through a bullpen game by continuing to add on runs and rout the Cardinals.

The Cardinals now begin a stretch of 22 consecutive games against winning teams beginning with the Los Angeles Dodgers' visit to Busch Stadium this weekend.

The ugliest of innings

As if the two home runs allowed by their starter to chase him from the game weren’t enough to curdle an inning on the Cardinals, they tossed in a few errors, too.

In one of the ugliest innings of the season, the Cardinals fell further behind on the scoreboard and came undone in the field. After Gibson allowed solo homers to India and Friedl, the final batter he faced started what became a slow unraveling of the defense and a far bigger lead for the Reds. Spencer Steer singled to left, and when trying to field the ball, Tommy Pham kicked it away from him.

That was the first error for the Cardinals.

The second came on the next play.

With lefty John King tagging in for Gibson to get a ground-ball, the reliever got exactly that and what would have been a third out. A ground-ball straight to second baseman Brendan Donovan and – right off his glove for an error. He scrambled to try and make the play, and his throw to first skipped and Paul Goldschmidt could not glove it cleanly. The play only resulted in one error, but it left two runners on base. King got another grounder, and it bounded out of reach for him and into the dead zone between fielders for an RBI single.

That’s two ground-balls, one error, one run, and no outs with only an out to get.

King got a third ground-ball from the next batter, Will Benson, but it also did not yield an out. Masyn Winn went to his backhand and the ball caromed off his glove for what was ruled a base hit by the official scorer.

In the end, the Cardinals had four balls ricochet off gloves or feet and the Reds scored three runs to widen their lead to 7-0.

Cardinals rally sparks, sputters

After losing their grip on defense, the Cardinals momentarily found their footing in the batter’s box.

Immediately after the porous fifth inning, the Cardinals responded with four consecutive hits to open the top of the sixth inning. Leadoff hitter Winn doubled. Alec Burleson followed with an RBI single for the Cardinals’ first run, and in the hitter-friendly confines of GABP, the potential for a much larger rally unfolded from there. Willson Contreras and Nolan Arenado followed with singles, and Arenado’s grounder slipped past the reach of Elly De La Cruz for an RBI.

Arenado drove in three of the Cardinals’ first four runs in the series.

(They just came over three days.)

The inning reached the back half of the Cardinals’ lineup with no outs and two runners on base. Reds reliever Carson Spiers struck out Donovan and Goldschmidt with runners in scoring position to regain control of the inning. Goldschmidt’s K came on Spiers final pitch, and when lefty Justin Wilson entered the Cardinals had the counter they planned – Jordan Walker. Manager Oliver Marmol explained before Wednesday’s game that Walker was promoted to be a right-handed bat to help the Cardinals’ performance against lefties. In his career, Walker has hit right-handers better, but the Cardinals are looking for any edge against an area where they’ve struggled. Walker pinch-hit to face Wilson and popped up to end the inning and its potential.

Slumping Red leads latest barrage

Former NL Rookie of the Year India entered Wednesday’s game on a 0 for 22 nosedive. He had one hit in his previous 29 at-bats. He had one home run in his previous 104 plate appearances.

He slugged two in the span off three innings.

India’s skid reached 0 for 22 before he faced Gibson in the third inning. During the Cardinals’ downturn in the past few weeks, a small thread tying together the games has been production from the back third of an opponent’s lineup. The Nos. 8 and 9 hitters walked and singled against Gibson to turn the lineup back around to India. On a 2-2 pitch, India drilled a three-run homer that gave the Reds’ their first runs.

Two innings later, he hit a solo homer off Gibson for the fourth multi-homer game of his career.

Home is where the homers are

While the Cardinals had a difficult time breaking through the cozy dimensions of Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati made most of their home launchpad. The scoreboard did its best to reflect the gap between the two teams in the series, but no statistic did it better than the simple, accessible home run totals.

Going into the eighth inning Wednesday, the Reds had hit 10.

The Cardinals had hit 1.

Home runs provided all of the Reds’ runs in their victory Monday, three of the four runs in their win Tuesday, and on Wednesday it was a home run from a struggling, slumping, scuffling leadoff hitter that vaulted Cincinnati to a quick lead. Gibson became the second Cardinals starter in the series to allow at least three homers to the Reds, and the season-high four they hit off him came on three different pitches. India’s first homer was on a 81.2-mph sweeper that India sent over the wall. His second homer was on a 84.6-mph changeup.

In the third inning, Tyler Stephenson tagged a 88.4-mph cutter to right field that plumped the Reds’ lead to 4-0. And in the fifth, Friedl lifted an 89.3-mph cutter into the right-field seats. All that changed between Friedl’s two home runs was the Cardinals pitcher and the Cardinals right fielder watching them soar out of reach.

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