SACRAMENTO — It didn’t take long for the Cardinals, ever so cozy and comfortable in these close games they keep creating, to go right back to their four-step recipe for holding leads in the late innings.

Two days after San Diego capsized Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien and won in extra innings, O’Brien was on the mound with a two-run lead to cement in the ninth Tuesday.

Along the banks of the Sacramento River, the familiar bridge of setup men carried that lead to him. O’Brien cooled the A’s and capped four innings from the Cardinals’ bullpen to finish a 6-4 victory Tuesday night at Sutter Health Park, the current home of the subleasing Athletics. With an off day separating the Cardinals and their bullpen from Sunday’s late-inning leak, the Cardinals had a rested and ready relief group and were ready to use them.

The Cardinals went to Ryne Stanek for the sixth, lefty JoJo Romero for the seventh, and George Soriano for the right-handed run through the eighth. Only Soriano encountered turbulence but got some help from his outfielders to present a two-run lead to O’Brien.

O’Brien walked the first batter he faced to bring the tying run to the plate. That threat fizzled for the A’s when O’Brien got a double-play groundball on a sweeping breaking ball. He finished his 12th save of the season by getting former batting champ Jeff McNeil to ground out on a 97-mph sinker.

The Cardinals’ right-handed lineup to start the game against a lefty starter lunged to a quick 4-0 lead. Jose Fermin doubled two of the runs in to give starter Andre Pallante the sizeable lead. Pallante (4-3) completed his 500th career inning and gave the Cardinals five innings Tuesday, most of which was pitched with a one-run lead.

The A’s rallied for three against Pallante in the second, and it wasn’t until just before the bullpen got involved that JJ Wetherholt homered to give the bullpen more breathing room.

The eighth inning needed it.

Soriano’s assigned inning became eventful from the get-go. The first batter he faced, Shea Langeliers, drilled a home run that traveled 448 feet. Langeliers’ 100th career home run nibbled into the Cardinals’ three-run lead. Soriano would retire the next two batters – one of them with help from Victor Scott II’s catch at the wall – before a double by Carlos Cortes brought the tying run to the plate. Soriano would escape the inning with a hold and the one run allowed, but not before Nathan Church had to follow in Scott’s footsteps and run a deep fly ball down on the warning track in left-center field.

Things go all right for Cards in 1st

For only the eighth time this season, the Cardinals faced a lefty starter, and that gave manager Oli Marmol the license to unload the right-handed bats from his bench.

Yohel Pozo, the third catcher turned pinch-hitter, started at designated hitter in a lineup that also featured Fermin in left field and Thomas Saggese at third base.

The starting lineup featured five right-handed batters in the first seven spots.

And it matter right from the start.

All five came to the plate in the first inning, and as a group they had four hits and propelled how the Cardinals introduced themselves to Sacramento – with a four-run first inning.

The rally began where most first-inning rallies do for the Cardinals. Leadoff hitter JJ Wetherholt worked a walk from A’s lefty Jeffrey Springs. Right-handed batters Ivan Herrera and Jordan Walker followed with singles. Wetherholt took off with the pitch with Herrera at the plate, and the Cardinals’ catcher cooly poked a single to right behind the runner to allow Wetherholt to reach third. Walker’s single brought him home.

Three batters later, Fermin scored Herrera and Walker with a double to the right-center. Walker scored from first on the play, sliding home ahead of the throw.

Pozo, in his third start of the season and first since April 14, got his first at-bat at DH and roped a single up the middle to score Fermin for the swift 4-0 lead.

The first two times through the lineup against Springs, the right-handed batters in the Cardinals’ lineup had six hits, reached base seven times, and drove in or scored all four of the Cardinals’ runs. When the A’s went to a right-handed reliever, Marmol flipped a spot in the lineup – and that spurred another rally.

Left the lefties work, too

Once Springs completed five innings and the A’s trailed by a run, the bullpen entered.

The first A’s reliever into the game was right-hander Joel Kuhnel, and the Cardinals quickly countered with left-handed bat Nolan Gorman.

Before the game, Marmol mentioned that he could make an argument with Sutter Health Park’s hitter-happy personality to start Gorman regardless of the lefty on the mound. He sided with Pozo but kept the lane open for Gorman to either appear at DH or third base depending on the opportunity offered by the A’s. Kuhnel’s entrance to face the bottom of the Cardinals’ lineup made the decision for Marmol.

He used Gorman to pinch-hit for Saggese, and Gorman pulled a single to right.

With a runner on, Wetherholt, another left-handed batter, worked Kuhnel to a full count. By rule, Kuhnel had to face both Gorman and Wetherholt before he could be pulled from the inning. Wetherholt connected on a hanging slider for a two-run homer that meant both of the lefties Kuhnel had to face reached and scored. Wetherholt’s eighth homer of the season vaulted the Cardinals to a three-run lead.

Pallante brings the heat

With a four-run lead before he ever threw a pitch, Pallante initially invited trouble with a pair of walks in the bottom of the first. He tiptoed around them in his usual style by getting a pair of meek groundballs that dimmed the A’s opportunity.

The A’s would bruise Pallante in the second inning for four hits and three runs. Two of them came on a double by catcher Langeliers. But even bookending that rally was some mild contact that Pallante was able to invite. A double play in the third inning erased another walk he allowed, and from there Pallante rolled until his five innings were finished.

Through it all, he kept the heat on the A’s.

Entering the start, Pallante had an average mph on his four-seam fastball this season of 94.7. The right-hander had 28 pitches swifter that 95.0 in the game, and that group included both his four-seam fastball and sinker. Each of them were up an average of a ½ mph throughout the game. He touched 97.6 mph with the fastball at one point.

Pallante did not allow a hit outside of the second inning burst from the A’s, and after a walk in the third, the right-hander retired seven consecutive.

By the end of the fifth, Pallante had thrown 85 pitches and the Cardinals had widened their lead to three runs. Still, show me a rested bullpen and I’ll show you a utilized one, and the Cardinals eagerly went back to their late-inning recipe to hold a lead of three or fewer runs.

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