MIAMI — A road trip that had such a raucous beginning in Houston came to a muted finish.

The Cardinals’ getaway-day lineup, geared to take advantage of Thursday’s off-day before launching into a 17-game, 17-day stretch, struggled to muster more than a fleeting flicker of offense in the series finale Wednesday against Miami. The Marlins dusted the Cardinals with a dozen hits and claimed the series with a 4-1 victory at loanDepot Park. With a chance to return home after winning five of six on their journey, the Cardinals fizzled vs. the fish and settled for a 4-2 road trip.

At one point, a power surge caused an outage of the Cardinals and Marlins' TV broadcasts.

That was the most notable power surge of the afternoon.

The offensive outage lasted eight innings.

A fielding error by the Marlins didn’t spark the Cardinals in the second. A leadoff double in the eighth didn’t amount to a run. Through his five innings, Marlins starter Janson Junk held the Cardinals to one hit — and that was a single in the third from catcher Pedro Pages.

The Cardinals avoided the shutout when Ivan Herrera drilled a home run to lead off the ninth inning. His third homer of the season disappeared just over the purple fencing in left field to halt the run of zeroes on the scoreboard.

Marlins closer Pete Fairbanks, a Mizzou product, retired both batters he faced in the ninth to secure his fifth save of the season and second of the series. The Cardinals struck out nine times and managed four hits, three of which came in the final three innings.

With their first marathon stretch of games starting Friday, manager Oli Marmol decided to take advantage of Thursday’s scheduled off-day to get several players a break. That put three regulars out of the lineup: the team’s leading home run hitter (Jordan Walker), the road trip’s RBI leader (Masyn Winn) and a reigning Silver Slugger Award winner (Alec Burleson). Walker had a scheduled day off that was plotted ahead of the week's results. The goal for the others was to steal two days before the demands of the next two weeks.

Absent their contributions, the lineup strained to produce threats, let alone runs.

Leahy grounded, but pedestrian outing

The eight groundouts that Leahy coaxed from the 25 batters he faced limited the length of Marlins’ rallies and forced them to string singles to generate any threat.

Where the start went awry was the help he offered with walks.

Leahy faced a lineup that ignored his changeup, especially if it faded from the zone, and as the innings unwound the Marlins remained stubborn and disinterested in chasing his pitches. That contributed to three walks in his first three innings, and two of them led directly to runs as the Marlins cobbled together a 4-0 lead against the right-hander.

In the second inning, Leahy allowed three singles, hit a batter — and then came the larger mistake. He walked leadoff batter Jakob Marsee with the bases loaded to force home Miami’s second run of the game. Leahy had just given himself an escape hatch by getting the Marlins’ No. 9 hitter to pop up in foul territory and not advance any of his three teammates on base. That second out of the inning gave Leahy a force-out at every base, evidence he could get a grounder and a way out of the trouble having allowed only one run.

The walk meant a 2-0 deficit.

A one-out walk in the fourth inning spurred the next Marlins’ rally, and again, it was Marsee bringing in the run. Marsee pulled a single to right that scored Leo Jimenez, who had walked, to give the Marlins a 3-0 lead.

Leahy paired the eight ground outs with eight hits allowed, and through five innings, he allowed a total of 12 base runners. For the right-hander making the shift from reliever last year to the rotation this year, it was the fourth time in five starts that he pitched five innings. And the similarities don’t stop there. He continues to show an assortment of pitches that can challenge hitters but also seeks a way to mix them or play them against each other to defy hits. Leahy got seven swings and misses, and two of them came on sweepers, which he threw only eight times.

RISP, but no rewards

With the need to stack hits to generate rallies, an essential part of the Cardinals’ success this season will be situational hitting — and a dash of timely hitting would sure help.

The Cardinals didn’t get much of the latter despite a winning road trip.

Going into the eighth inning of the series finale in Miami, the Cardinals were 3 for 21 with runners in scoring position at loanDepot Park.

They did not have an at-bat with a runner in scoring position Wednesday until the seventh inning.

Nolan Gorman led off the inning with a double.

He did not advance to third until there were two outs, and given four different chances to drive him home, his teammates could not. They went 1 for 4 with him 180 feet or less away from home, and the one hit they got was a single that only moved him along to third.

They created runs out of sacrifice flies in Monday’s opener to score points for situation hitting, but they didn’t have that breakthrough hit to conjure a crooked number. That continued throughout the series and was even part of the road trip, despite a power-laden sweep of the Astros in Houston. Going into the ninth Wednesday, the Cardinals were 11 for 58 (.190) with runners in scoring position the road trip.

Base running giveth, base running taketh

The Marlins’ charitable endeavors on the base paths continued in the series finale with the hosts politely running their way out of potentially larger scoring rallies.

But a Marlin also may have saved one with a smart step.

Through five innings Wednesday, the Marlins had run into two pivotal outs on the base paths. Nathan Church threw out Javier Sanoja as he attempted to take third on a single to right field. That out at third cost the Marlins a chance at another run as they widened their lead to 3-0 through four innings. In the fifth, Agustin Ramirez singled home Otto Lopez for a 4-0 lead, and he was able to take second on a ground ball.

Leahy caught Ramirez leaning, and he was out in a rundown.

That directly cost the Marlins an additional run when the batter at the plate, Heriberto Hernandez, poked a single up the middle that could have scored Ramirez from second — if he was still there.

On Tuesday night, Miami also had a few missteps that helped starter Dustin May avoid more trouble in his 5 1/3 innings. Like Church, Jordan Walker threw out a runner at third base. The Marlins leadoff hitter was thrown out as he tried to advance on a single. And the Cardinals also caught All-Star Kyle Stowers trying to steal second. All of those moments, like the two Wednesday, curtailed the Marlins offense.

One choice on the bases boosted it.

In the second inning, with two Marlins already on base, Hernandez chopped a grounder to third base that drew Gorman to his left and toward the base runner. Liam Hicks stopped and dropped and made Gorman take the extra stride to come to him rather than closing the gap and giving Gorman a chance at a double play. The lead runner, Hernandez, was out. But the teammates behind him were safe, and that led directly to the Marlins’ first run.

Owen Caissie followed Hernandez’s groundout with a single to left that scored the first run of the game. A two-run rally happened because Hicks avoided the double play.

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